Lucas Perez has released a statement in response to claims he refused to warm up during West Ham’s 3-1 victory vs. Everton.
The Spaniard appeared to be annoyed sitting on the bench following Manuel Pellegrini’s decision to bring on Michail Antonio instead as West Ham picked up their first points of the season.
Perez has since felt the need to clarify what actually happened, detailing the event from his perspective via a full statement on Twitter.
It read: “Given the false information spread by the media that has affected my image, I am obliged to explain the only truth: I have never ever refused to warm up in my whole career, let alone play a match.
“In my current club, the players on the bench warm up in series of 3 to 5 minutes, in continuous rotation. In the moment that Marko got injured, I was on the bench after warming up. The coach called me to go out to play, however having realised that it was faster to substiture Michail Antonio in, who at that moment was warming up, he changed his decision.”
Lucas Perez refusing to warm up pic.twitter.com/aPWDG9gtkT
— Andrinho (@yxngbaz) September 16, 2018
The former Arsenal striker than addressed the images that had circulated on social media of him shaking his head on the bench.
“The images that have been misinterpreted correspond to a talk with the goalkeeper’s coach, in which I never refused to warm up and explained what happened.
As a professional, I accept the decision and I will continue working hard to have as many minutes as I can.”
— Lucas Pérez (@LP10oficial) September 17, 2018
Manuel Pellegrini’s post-match comments also back up Perez’s version of events.
The Chilean coach, who was celebrating his 65th birthday, explained his decision: “When Marko was injured, I called Lucas because he was doing a warm-up, and when I saw he was sat on the bench and Antonio was working and ready, that’s why I brought him on instead, rather than waiting for Lucas to warm up again,” he told Sky Sports.
“Antonio was ready, and Lucas had to warm up a little bit more.”
West Ham saw out the game much to the relief of Pellegrini who, despite it being his birthday, was only concerned with improving the Hammer’s start to the season.
“My birthday is the last thing I was thinking about! I was worried about the game, because I was absolutely convinced we must end these bad results. We have been very unlucky to lose the three last games, as I said before, maybe we didn’t deserve to win but we didn’t deserve to lose either.
“It’s easy to say that we are going to change and say this isn’t the right way, but I am completely convinced it is. We tried to score goals form the first minute and we continued to try to once we managed it.
“I didn’t know how close a performance like that was, but I see the players working every day, and maybe in matches we haven’t been able to perform like that but we must be able to repeat it during games, under pressure or with bad comments about our performances.
“On some days maybe with West Ham 2-0 up they could come back but we must be able to repeat our performances. I’m convinced, and the players are convinced.”
West Ham face rivals Chelsea at the London Stadium next as they look to make it back-to-back wins.
The post Lucas Perez denies refusing to warm up for West Ham in official statement appeared first on Squawka News.
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