Antonio trains with Foxes in bid to restart career

Striker Michail Antonio will be given a chance to restart his club career in the Championship with Leicester City a year after being involved in a car crash which put his playing future in serious doubt.

The 35-year-old former West Ham forward suffered a badly broken leg, with his femur snapped in four places, after the Ferrari he was driving struck a tree in Epping Forest in December 2024.

He has been training with Leicester this week and is a free agent option for Foxes boss Marti Cifuentes to potentially turn to in the absence of Patson Daka, who will join up with Zambia next week for the Africa Cup of Nations.

"He has looked good and has been a good lad to have around as well," Cifuentes told BBC East Midlands Today.

"We are just having a look at him and he is happy to train with us."

Antonio was in the final months of his contract with Premier League side West Ham when the single vehicle crash happened late last year.

He spent more than three weeks in hospital after undergoing surgery and has since spoken of the gruelling physical and mental recovery that followed.

He did not regain fitness in time to return to the pitch for West Ham last season and was released at the end of his contract in June.

He did, however, return to action with Jamaica in the summer and remained with West Ham after his contract expired, allowing him to continue his recovery and gain much-needed game time with the club's Under-21 side.

When asked if Antonio has shown signs of the trauma he has endured in the past year, Cifuentes said: "Not at all.

"We are aware that he has been training before with another club and he is looking good in that sense," the Spaniard continued.

"Match fitness is what will take some time to learn because he has been away for a long period.

"It's never easy, and it doesn't matter how hard you train or how hard you are involved, because the level of the game is different."

Antonio spent a decade with West Ham and left them as their all-time leading Premier League scorer with 68 goals from 268 games.

The forward, whose career started at non-league level with Tooting & Mitcham United, has scored more than 130 goals across more than 550 appearances since signing his first professional deal with Reading as an 18-year-old.

He went on to have spells at Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest before moving to West Ham in 2015.