West Ham boss David Moyes admits they've been close signing Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins.

Moyes made the admission when paying tribute to Michail Antonio ahead of his 300th appearance for the club this weekend.

He said: “Mick, we never expected to go away.

“Buying a centre-forward nowadays is such difficult business, to get one who you think can come in and make a difference. To get the right one at the right price is so difficult.

“I often think that it puts a manager under pressure, signing a centre-forward. My experience tells me that. If you buy a centre-forward and he doesn't score the goals, you probably lose your job. That means unless you're going to buy one at top money that you know is proven, it becomes very difficult for managers.

“We've tried for years to find people that we believed might be right. If you look back over the last two or three years at the number of centre-forwards [people have] named that might be coming here, there might be quite a lot of them that have failed and they wouldn't have been any good.

“We've missed out on ones we would've like when you look back, maybe Ollie Watkins, people like that. But it's a journey, sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't."