And then there's more expensive options that people wanted such as Nunez, Mudryk etc. All we can do is trust ten Hag knows something about the players he brings in and give the club and players the time they need to integrate effectively.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 44
- Goals
- 8
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 8
- Status
The reach
If there's one thing that you absolutely can't level at Antony it's that he has a brittle mentality. He'd play every minute of every game if it was up to him. He occasionally lashes out and gets frustrated but his mentality is one of the elements that has me convinced he'll be a success.The reach
Widely reported Antony cost the club €95m and earns £200k per week, you can find the figures online or in our recent accounts, For the record that’s £82m which is what United bought Antony from Ajax, I having problems with predicted text but yes I meant £200k per week not £200m my bagthe cost outlay is rising week by week. Now earns a transfer kitty as a weekly wage
He has been underwhelming but he maybe has enough excuses or valid reasons for that. We should expect next season better output and fitness, the latter has been a clear problem all season. He simply hasn't been able to play a full 90 minutes at the same level except maybe once.
First season and playing without a striker to feed chances to.............. Imagine coming in to a new team and needing to link up with Weghorst.
Exactly, you can question his skillset all you want but his mentality is spot on. He works hard and always fights every second he is on the pitch.
Even if you want to say his mentality is weak, go ahead but not with the lame reason like " looks like he has a brittle mentality as he’s played 25% less games than the rest too "
To be fair, it was club's key decision for the season, that Ronaldo is the main striker and Martial stays as an option.
If Antony didn't arrive in late stages of the window, that leaves us with Pellistri & Sancho for right wing to the rest of the season. Not many perfect scenarios in this conondrum, but I also totally get why some folks would want to see more Pellistri playing. To what effect, we'll never know.
Next summer, the board will have to acknowledge the problems in the dressing room as a general disruptor and deal with it. Ten Hag alone will need to have fully ready squad for the season so he can finally instill something permanently, or we'll simply see more than 50% of squad dropping in performances again.
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Seems you can’t answer the question
I think we were desperate for a right winger and ETH knows him and believe he will make a difference. We would never paid more than 50 million if it was not ETH. No coach in the world will pay 84 million for him. At the end of the day, ETH has to take responsibility as he wanted him so badly. If ETH agree there are other target available, we won't be paying this amount. Now it is ETH to help Antony reach his maximum potential. If Antony fails to adapt and becomes average then the fault lies with ETH and not Antony. Today, Antony is not worth 50 million. No club will offer this money for him from his performance.
I'm not giving him excuses. On a contrary, he gave trouble to teams such as Barca. He's defnitely not the anti-hero of the season imo.
I seem to be in the minority here but I am not overly worried about Antony. What he's lacking at the moment are things that can be worked on and improved. His shooting, crossing (Maybe having a proper striker might help) and going on the outside are definitely things that can be improved on and he seems to have the work-rate and mentality to do so. We did overpay but that's a different story.
A. good winger needs to be able to go by his marker on outside as well as inside. Antony can't do this. He can't cross a ball either, as he never gets to the byline and only has one foot.
Who is blaming the player? It affects the discourse around him though. Fees always have and always will matter because we don’t have a bottomless pit of oil money,
It may have made our team better if the money saved was spent well elsewhere though. Good results generally make people happier.
He has definitely got past his marker on the outside. He hasn't done it enough, but he's shown he can do it. Having an attacking minded right back he can work in tandem with will be a huge boost to his game.
Yeah, but when he does he then stops to get it back on his left foot. Negating going past them in the first place.
It goes without saying that the club has got plenty wrong. Booting out Ronaldo as ten Hag's first act as manager would have been asking for trouble for a myriad of reasons.
The thing with Antony is that, he's not slow. But he has this habit of everytime he gets over the full back by the line, he always has to stop, wait for the marker to recover position, and then try to dribble him again this time cutting inside. He not only doesn't have a good right foot but also he knows that and has zero confidence in his ability to create something with it. Always cutting inside over and over again
I've been at Old Trafford and watched him go down the outside and past his marker. My mate was remonstrating that he needs to do it more often (which I agree with) but he has done it on occasion without cutting back.
You’re talking one in a million there.
Good results such as win vs strong teams like Arsenal or Barca ? Definitely. I'll be expecting more from our wingers next season, but without proper strikers I won't expect that many goals making results for us.
That would be nice. Goals against the likes of Brighton help too. Lacking a proper striker hasn’t stopped Bruno and Rashford from racking up assists in the double figures. Seems a problem quite unique to Antony.
It is a problem, this team is full of problems. Some players are here one season, some more than five and there's still no solution to a problem whatsoever.
We are not playing like Ajax and Ajax had Haller who could finish off chances from any position in the box.
It sounds like we've bought him as a prospect that needs to improve shooting, crossing, decision making and weaker foot ability. He's also not overly fast, and can't last much longer than 60-70' on the pitch. I can't believe ETH bought him for his mentality, and hoping he will improve on all those attacking aspects.
People say we needed a right winger when he doesn't really play like a winger, more of a right midfielder who keeps the ball and pulls the game higher up the pitch.
I love the odd goal from him, but I hate those lame left footed curling shots he often attempts when other options were on. Look great when they go in, but they're not going to win us games on a consistent basis. We need more diversity from our wing play.
That said, he's not the type of player who needs to add goals to his game to be succesful, but better decision making in possession, more assists and using his abilities to create goalscoring opportunities for others should be how he is measured going forward.
That said, he's not the type of player who needs to add goals to his game to be succesful, but better decision making in possession, more assists and using his abilities to create goalscoring opportunities for others should be how he is measured going forward.
Cheers Moyes
If we’ve bought him as a development player, that’s fine but you don’t spend £80m on him, as United fans, can we please stop arguing the merits of what we should expect, we’ve made huge mistakes in the transfer market, Young, experienced and veteran, maybe we’ve got this all wrong and it’s the club that makes players like Angel Di Maria, Alexis Sanchez, Paul Pogba, Radamel Falcao, Antony, J Sancho all elite players at other clubs that just don’t do it consistently at united, the moment they step foot into carrington.
I actually do rate Antony as £40/50m player that needs 2 seasons to develop into a 1 goal involvements in 2.5/3 games but I also think there are other options that give us what we need right now, goals and assists in the final third from the right wing, maybe if a certain kid hadn’t f….up so much we would have had a solution and we could have brought Antony in to compete.
United need to have 7/8 options for the front 4 positions; Currently you only hang your hat on Rashford, Bruno and to a lesser extent Garnaucho and one is a kid whose just turned 19.
Jadon Sancho was bought as the next united superstar, he was expected to be our right winger, is he good enough I’m not sure but I would give them both a chance next year, we bring back Amad and we might have 6 options but this team needs at least two more elite attacking players with elite mentality to play next year.
I’m hoping a player like Kane, Osimhen, I Toney have got enough about them to moan even more than Bruno to get the right side to start supplying the ammunition, providing we sign one of them, our new 9 needs to be a little selfish and nasty.
I’m hoping we have enough money to get a slightly different option from Bruno in the number 10 position like J Maddison or M Kudas and in some games Bruno plays as an 8.
I actually do rate Antony as £40/50m player that needs 2 seasons to develop into a 1 goal involvements in 2.5/3 games but I also think there are other options that give us what we need right now, goals and assists in the final third from the right wing, maybe if a certain kid hadn’t f….up so much we would have had a solution and we could have brought Antony in to compete.
United need to have 7/8 options for the front 4 positions; Currently you only hang your hat on Rashford, Bruno and to a lesser extent Garnaucho and one is a kid whose just turned 19.
Jadon Sancho was bought as the next united superstar, he was expected to be our right winger, is he good enough I’m not sure but I would give them both a chance next year, we bring back Amad and we might have 6 options but this team needs at least two more elite attacking players with elite mentality to play next year.
I’m hoping a player like Kane, Osimhen, I Toney have got enough about them to moan even more than Bruno to get the right side to start supplying the ammunition, providing we sign one of them, our new 9 needs to be a little selfish and nasty.
I’m hoping we have enough money to get a slightly different option from Bruno in the number 10 position like J Maddison or M Kudas and in some games Bruno plays as an 8.
Completely agree, I think where the problem lies is the fee that we paid for him, hardly the first such player here, or in the premeirship but that kind of fee for potential is crazy, which isnt his fault.
I think the comparison with Nani, should simply be both you can see have big ability on the ball, regardless of who is the more talented or stats, the main comparison to me is Antony this season is lacking in decision making at the right moments....and that is something for me Nani though great in spells never really overcame, he was a great talent in a great side but performance wise as a player he wasnt consitently superb, think its a bit of rose tinted glasses looking back and remembering the good times, he frustrated during many periods of his career here. The challenge is whether liek you mention Antony can progress and improve in these aspects, then he could become a very good player for us AND performance wise have a better career than Nani here....of course if he doesnt, he will of course go down as a huge flop, but its simply too early to be making those conclusion just yet
His price is the biggest issue for more reasons than one. The fact we overpaid as well as our manager being the one that so heavily favored the transfer puts pressure on playing him. Why? Because there's the same downside to both not playing him (you look a fool) as well as playing him (when he turns out to be shite you also look a fool), but there's a potential upside to playing him (could miraculously come good).
I have a feeling he'd already be going down the Obertan/Bebe route if he'd been cheaper.
How did Antony get into that list?
Di Maria was a fantastic player at Madrid, world class or close to that. He was actually deployed in midfield at the time we got him.
Alexis Sanchez was one of the best wingers in EPL, not the youngest but also not that expensive.
Pogba was always a risk, I didn't like the guy but also think the attempts to play him in two man midfield were ridiculous waste of his talents.
Falcao, Cavani, Ibra were all high-profile players that we probably got too late, but still class on a day.
Sancho is an interesting one, I personally don't think the club made a mistake to sign him. He was super hot prospect and clearly a very good footballer. The mistake was to give him super high contract. For whatever reason he seems to be struggling but not sure if that could've been predicted before a big move. TBH we had some terrible luck with transfers in the last years as well (+ Greenwood).
Antony seems to have been picked out of nowhere. I don't track transfers closely, but seems like nobody heard about this guy until ETH decided to chase him at all costs.
That is actually a good point. That is a similarity between them. But Nani also had all the tools. He was fast, good with both feet, could cross and shoot. He was however incredibly frustrating, similarily how Sancho and Pogba frustrate me now. Bags of talent but can't really do anything impactful with it. Antony doesn't frustrate me, I just don't rate him as an attacker so I have very low expectations. The transfer though frustrates me af.
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Can we please stop comparing Nani to Antony seriously?
73 assists for Nani means any comparison to Antony is ridiculous.
Antony would be unlikely to get 70 assists if he plays till he 60
I fully agree, I didn't even compare them, just mentioned both make wrong choices but Nani was a different player, complete winger when on song.
BTW I am yet to see an apt comparison for Antony. He doesn't look like anything else to me.
So what do we do to solve the Antony problem, sell or loan out, he was being mentioned as a possible replacement for Salah should Liverpool sell him when he was in dispute with a new contract, he was clearly never worth more than £35/40m, what villa paid for Leon Bailey, we talk about an English tax but their is also a Brazilian tax and let’s be honest the national team have not been very good for a long time.
Richarlson £60m, Raphina who would have been a better option £55m, the list goes on, we spent over £200m on Fred, Casemeiro and Antony let that sink in for a second only Casemeiro has lived up to his price tag. Yet Madrid bought Vincinius junior and Rodrigo for a fraction of that £200m. The conclusion is simple We are the worlds worst club at buying and selling players and we should completely overhaul the department, top to bottom when the new owners arrive, DOF, Chief Scouts, South American scouts, European scouts everything must go and start again!
I don't mind Fred (I bet he's on reasonably low wages and has been decent servant for us).
Casemiro - we needed to buy him, and if we get top 4 then he was worth it.
Antony fee is absolutely ridiculous (also if the reports about wages are true), I do not accept that he was the only RW we could buy with that money. So if he continues on current level that is terrible deal by the club. Let's just hope he has a breakthrough season next year.
Nani is more comparable to the 2004-2006 C.Ronaldo than to Antony if you look at his play style
I mean even their styles are totally different. Nani was good with both feet was far quicker and had a far better shot in him
Nani would also give the ball away and lose possession like his life depended on it. He was a seriously good player when he pulled it all together, but in this era of football where it's all about systems and suffocating opposition with possession etc he'd really struggle.
completely false. There are more than one way to skin a cat. The Pep influence strikes again! The most dispossessions Nani had in a single season was 2.4 pg (often below 2pg), combined with average 80% pass completion. In Salah 1st 2 seasons he was dispossessed 2.6 pg with a 76% pass completion yet is one of the best in the world. Salah has never had above 80% pass completion. Kane has a 72% pass rate. Dunno how they survive in this modern era tbh
Even De Bruyne averages a pass completion around 75%.
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