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Michail Antonio says Leeds once had a player who was tougher to play against than Eden Hazard

Charles Jones

Thu 17 July 2025 14:15, UK

Michail Antonio has named a former Leeds United player as one of his most difficult opponents.

Michail Antonio may be best known as a striker during his time at West Ham, but, once upon a time, the Jamaica international was a right-back.

Antonio has played against the best of the best at right-back, including Eden Hazard and Marcus Rashford, but according to the forward, his most difficult opponent was a winger who used to play for Leeds United.

Remarkably, Modou Barrow was named as Antonio’s toughest opponent, as the former Swansea, Reading and Leeds ace tore him to bits at one point.

Michail Antonio names Modou Barrow as his toughest opponent

Antonio was asked to name who his toughest opponent ever was.

Interestingly, the former West Ham star named Barrow as the best he faced, claiming that there was one game in particular where he just couldn’t handle him.

Antonio is one of the strongest players around, but he struggled against Barrow.

“Nobody will know who he is, Mo Barrow, when he was at Swansea, I have marked Martial, Hazard, Rashford, I have marked all of these people but the one who ripped me the most was Mo Barrow,” Antonio said.

“Bro, they won 3-0, all the goals from him. Bang, through my legs, assists, I stood there like ‘oh s—, he’s got me, I was so surprised.’ He destroyed me.

Mo Barrow’s stats vs West Ham in 2016

Michail Antonio is slightly misremembering this game and his performance against Barrow.

These two have only faced off twice in their careers, and it would appear that the game Antonio is referencing here was a 4-1 loss in 2016 rather than a 3-0 defeat.

Barrow did grab an assist in that game, while he was making a lot happen, getting five crosses off while only making eight passes in the entire match as he focused on running at Antonio.

Meanwhile, Antonio had a strange game, he had five shots from right-back, and delivered nine crosses of his own.

It’s easy to see why Antonio was moved back into the attack at West Ham, where he would become a fantastic player, and, luckily for Antonio, he didn’t have to play against Barrow again in his entire career.