West Ham fans were angry to see Perez’s apparent refusal to warm up
Lucas Perez has denied reports that he refused to warm up during West Ham’s 3-1 win over Everton at the weekend.
The former Arsenal striker looked set to replace Marko Arnautović, but Michail Antonio came on instead, after Perez apparently refused to warm up.
However he has since come out and denied this “false information”. In a statement that he published on Twitter, he said:
“I have never ever refused to warm up in my whole career, let alone play a match.”
“In my current club, players warm up in series of 3 to 5 minutes, in continuous rotation,” he explained.
“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 it was faster to substitute Antonio in, who at the moment was warming up, he changed his decision.
“The images that have been misinterpreted correspond to a talk with the goalkeeper coach, in which I never refused to warm up and explain what happened. As a professional I accept the decision and will continue working hard to have as many minutes as I can.”
