Gary Lineker hailed Marko Arnautovic on Twitter for his starring role in West Ham’s 3-0 Premier League win at his former club Stoke City on Saturday.
He was booed relentlessly by Stoke fans unable to forgive him for his £20million summer move to the capital.
But the 28-year-old, who was told he must work harder or risk being dropped when David Moyes arrived in November, used the barracking as motivation.
He braved the catcalls after he missed several strong chances, and hit the bar twice, and kept plugging away without letting his head drop before scoring the second of the visiting side’s three goals following a deft exchange of passes with Manuel Lanzini.
Match of the Day host Lineker was impressed by the persistence of the wide forward and understood his celebration at the Bet365 Stadium.
After about 33 efforts on goal and being booed the entire game by the Stoke fans, Arnautovic finally scores against his former club. Did he celebrate? Too right he did.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) December 16, 2017
Arnautovic had struggled to make at impact at the Hammers in the opening months of the season, but he delivered a man-of-the-match display a week ago against Chelsea, opening his goal account for the club with a superbly taken first-half strike.
OPINION
West Ham fans have spent most of Arnautovic’s debut campaign wondering why on earth the club bothered spending such a massive fan on a dilettante performer. But the powerful Austrian has rekindled memories of his finest Stoke days with his last two performances that suggested they might not necessarily want to accept the first offer that is tabled for him in the January window. While one or,even, two swallows do not make a summer, this was a hint of far better things to come, and suggests the man they called ‘Arnie’ when he was at Stoke can turn it around at the London Stadium.