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Because Antony is much more of a wide midfielder than an attacker. This is how I see him and I think he's having a decent season actually. If I considered him as an attacker, this wouldn't be a good season at all.

The question is if we really need a player like that in the team long term. I can understand that we needed a stop gap on RW and he solves some problems (also in midfield), but I have huge doubts about this transfer overall.

That's an interesting take. I can see what you mean about being more a wide midfielder than an attacker - to a large extent, he doesn't operate in the spaces or do the sort of things wide forwards normally do. However, there is something to contradict it, namely his propensity to finish. He's got a very high number of shots, and also actually a top level xG. There's no question a big part part of his game is getting into shooting positions and finishing. Also, the defining trait of a wide winger, ie the willingness and ability to beat a defender to the outside, is something that is almost absent from his game. So, maybe more.....like a shadow striker operating off the right flank? Or a sideways-tilted #10 who doesn't much like to pass? He really defies categorisation, doesn't he. Very unusual profile.

I also share your doubts over the transfer. At least, he has to develop significantly from where he is now in order to be a permanent solution in his position. Intuitively, it seems plausible that he might - he seems in many ways like a raw player, who also lacks a clear focus and definition to his game. For starters, he probably either needs to shoot better or pass more. Given how direct Rashford and Garnacho are on the opposite side, the latter of those options seem perhaps like a more useful path to take. With Sancho playing off the left it's different.
 
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That's an interesting take. I can see what you mean about being more a wide midfielder than an attacker - to a large extent, he doesn't operate in the spaces or do the sort of things wide forwards normally do. However, there is something to contradict it, namely his propensity to finish. He's got a very high number of shots, and also actually a top level xG. There's no question a big part part of his game is getting into shooting positions and finishing. Also, the defining trait of a wide winger, ie the willingness and ability to beat a defender to the outside, is something that is almost absent from his game. So, maybe more.....like a shadow striker operating off the right flank? Or a sideways-tilted #10 who doesn't much like to pass? He really defies categorisation, doesn't he. Very unusual profile.
It doesn't contadict this at all. Just because he is part of the front 3/4, he will be getting those chances (see what happens when Bruno plays RW). Because most of our game happens on the left, he often gets "lost" by the defenders on the right side and gets in good positions. I don't see this as something he deserves credit for, stick anyone up there and he gets the same chances. But we can't put anyone in there on the right because of how much work Antony does progressing the ball and defensive effort. But again, if we're chasing a goal I'd much rather put Bruno on the right.
He's not a shadow striker because he rarely makes runs into the box, while #10s have good vision/passing so he isn't one either. I still think "wide midfielder with license to get to more advanced positions" is the best description of him. An attacker he is not, what is very clear if you watch how ineffective he is when given space to run into.

I also share your doubts over the transfer. At least, he has to develop significantly from where he is now in order to be a permanent solution in his position. Intuitively, it seems plausible that he might - he seems in many ways like a raw player, who also lacks a clear focus and definition to his game. For starters, he probably either needs to shoot better or pass more. Given how direct Rashford and Garnacho are on the opposite side, the latter of those options seem perhaps like a more useful path to take. With Sancho playing off the left it's different.
I already mentioned this before that I think he's doing very well considering his blatant limitations. But I have no idea where does he go from here.
 
Tell me one match that Sancho ran from one side of the pitch to another?

anyway -



https://one-versus-one.com/en/compa...ho-vs-antony-matheus-dos-santos#:~:text=Jadon Sancho has a total,a total of 0 chances.



This says antony is higher in - passes in to final third, crosses and successful dribbles, more shots on target & its conversion and expected goals.



All at the same time he has better work rate and challenges.



Sancho might be better to you and does have better stats in some areas but this is just your opinion too and not facts.

Mate, if you're going to use those stats, you might want to put some context behind them because highlighting only a few stats, whilst ignoring others is just cherry-picking.
I think they have both been very poor for us by the way but I don't thinking selecting a few stats to push forward some narrative is the way to go.

For instance, Antony has more shots on target simply because he shoots more often - 3.44 per 90 for Antony compared to 1.26 per 90 for Sancho.
You mention passes into the final third but didn't mention that Sancho has almost double the number of key passes than Antony does, did you?

As for conversion percentage, from what I can tell, the stats look wrong for this site because the numbers don't add up there for Sancho (the site states he has a conversion percentage of 10%), when according to the premier league website he has has a conversion rate of 28% from all shots (5/18), and 50% from shots on target (5/10):

https://www.premierleague.com/players/14801/Jadon-Sancho/stats?co=1&se=489

As for Antony, he has a conversion percentage of 16.6% (4/24) for shots on target, and 5% for all shots (4/71):

https://www.premierleague.com/players/75381/Antony/stats

So actually, Antony is far worse at conversion.

I'm also dubious about this quote here:

Lets have a look at Jadon Sancho’s and Antony Matheus’s defensive skills. Jadon Sancho has a total of 0 blocks, 23 aerial duels and a total number of 0 tackles.

Looking again at the premier league site, Sancho has made 29 tackles:
https://www.premierleague.com/players/14801/Jadon-Sancho/stats

There's also another mention of 'conversion' in that site you used, which is 'big chance conversion', which paints a different picture - 27.78% for Sancho vs a measly 5.71% for Antony, which is absolutely shocking. Antony ranks in the 42nd percentile for that metric, whilst Sancho ranks in the 97th percentile for that.

There are plenty of stats on that link you've provided that favour Antony, btw, just letting you know that this source looks pretty inaccurate for a number of things.
 
It doesn't contadict this at all. Just because he is part of the front 3/4, he will be getting those chances (see what happens when Bruno plays RW). Because most of our game happens on the left, he often gets "lost" by the defenders on the right side and gets in good positions. I don't see this as something he deserves credit for, stick anyone up there and he gets the same chances. But we can't put anyone in there on the right because of how much work Antony does progressing the ball and defensive effort. But again, if we're chasing a goal I'd much rather put Bruno on the right.
He's not a shadow striker because he rarely makes runs into the box, while #10s have good vision/passing so he isn't one either. I still think "wide midfielder with license to get to more advanced positions" is the best description of him. An attacker he is not, what is very clear if you watch how ineffective he is when given space to run into.


I already mentioned this before that I think he's doing very well considering his blatant limitations. But I have no idea where does he go from here.

I'm not saying he's a good attacker. But when you have the 4th highest shots/90 in the PL, which Antony does, it seems a bit of a stretch to not think of him as an attacker of some sort....
 
I'm not saying he's a good attacker. But when you have the 4th highest shots/90 in the PL, which Antony does, it seems a bit of a stretch to not think of him as an attacker of some sort....

Or just a player who lacks self awareness and brains?
 
I'm not saying he's a good attacker. But when you have the 4th highest shots/90 in the PL, which Antony does, it seems a bit of a stretch to not think of him as an attacker of some sort....
He also has very low conversion rate and only 4 goals from his xG=6,5 (pumped by the number of shots he takes). He simply takes a lot of shots from low-quality positions to pull the trigger, I don't think that is enough to call him an attacker if you put this together with his strengths and weaknesses (which again indicate he's much more of a midfielder). It's semantics what we call him, I just made a point about his playing style.

It is however quite funny that if you read through this thread he sometimes looks the most "dangerous" player we have (when Rashford is having a bad day and Bruno is playing a bit deeper), and yet clearly he is the least likely from our attacking formation (apart from Wout) to hurt the opposition. What is bizarre itself.
 
He also has very low conversion rate and only 4 goals from his xG=6,5 (pumped by the number of shots he takes). He simply takes a lot of shots from low-quality positions to pull the trigger, I don't think that is enough to call him an attacker if you put this together with his strengths and weaknesses (which again indicate he's much more of a midfielder). It's semantics what we call him, I just made a point about his playing style.

Yes, and those were interesting points, it's just that that level of shooting frequency (the only players ahead of him are out and out strikers; Haaland, Nunez and Mitrovic) makes it a bit problematic to regard him as a midfielder rather than an attacker. In a way that is about more than semantics. No matter how bad his shooting is. Because it indicates that his game is heavily focused on finishing, which is not easy to reconcile with the profile of a wide midfielder.
 
It is however quite funny that if you read through this thread he sometimes looks the most "dangerous" player we have (when Rashford is having a bad day and Bruno is playing a bit deeper), and yet clearly he is the least likely from our attacking formation (apart from Wout) to hurt the opposition. What is bizarre itself.

Yeah, the problem is of course that he's really not a good shooter, and would almost certainly make a better contribution if he was shooting much less frequently. Since he also isn't that much of a dribbler, that really leaves passing as the thing he should probably do more often - which would make him more of a midfielder. :)

Not that he's particularly great at that either.
 
Yeah, the problem is of course that he's really not a good shooter, and would almost certainly make a better contribution if he was shooting much less frequently. Since he also isn't that much of a dribbler, that really leaves passing as the thing he should probably do more often - which would make him more of a midfielder. :)

Not that he's particularly great at that either.

I can't think of anything he's particularly great at.

Shooting, passing, crossing, dribbling......

I don't think he's anything like top drawer at any of those categories and in a few of them he's below average.

We waste so much money on so little output. It's actually scary how bad we are at gaging talent and whether they can be a good fit for us.
 
I can't think of anything he's particularly great at.

Shooting, passing, crossing, dribbling......

I don't think he's anything like top drawer at any of those categories and in a few of them he's below average.

We waste so much money on so little output. It's actually scary how bad we are at gaging talent and whether they can be a good fit for us.

Our manager spent 2 years managing him...
 
Yes, and those were interesting points, it's just that that level of shooting frequency (the only players ahead of him are out and out strikers; Haaland, Nunez and Mitrovic) makes it a bit problematic to regard him as a midfielder rather than an attacker. In a way that is about more than semantics. No matter how bad his shooting is. Because it indicates that his game is heavily focused on finishing, which is not easy to reconcile with the profile of a wide midfielder.
Yes, but he is still in 80% a wide midfielder. The remaining 20% can be (not very good) shooting and a few other minor things, doesn't change that he fits this label.
Yeah, the problem is of course that he's really not a good shooter, and would almost certainly make a better contribution if he was shooting much less frequently. Since he also isn't that much of a dribbler, that really leaves passing as the thing he should probably do more often - which would make him more of a midfielder. :)

Not that he's particularly great at that either.
His passing is probably his worst attribute of all 3 you mentioned. Whenever he tries anything more difficult than a simple square/back pass it's either badly executed, too late or floating. From all those 3 attributes his passing worries me the most.
 
Because Antony is much more of a wide midfielder than an attacker. This is how I see him and I think he's having a decent season actually. If I considered him as an attacker, this wouldn't be a good season at all.

The question is if we really need a player like that in the team long term. I can understand that we needed a stop gap on RW and he solves some problems (also in midfield), but I have huge doubts about this transfer overall.

That doesn't really make sense though. He's not a wide midfielder, hell he shoots more than anyone in our team, what wide midfielder does that? Also if you want to consider him a midfielder then is his passing stats REALLY become absolutely abhorrent.
 
That doesn't really make sense though. He's not a wide midfielder, hell he shoots more than anyone in our team, what wide midfielder does that? Also if you want to consider him a midfielder then is his passing stats REALLY become absolutely abhorrent.
He shoots as much as any striker, is he one of them?
Look at the position he takes, his biggest strength is keeping the ball and workrate. That fits wide midfielder role more than anything else.
His passing is his worst attribute I agree, but I don't think this changes anything really. He adapted his game to his limitations and makes the most of it, it's quite impressive to be honest.
 
Just came of YouTube, some of his skills and tricks in does videos are quite breath takin... give him another season to develop futher he's got that special bit about him.

I love him :drool:
 
Just came of YouTube, some of his skills and tricks in does videos are quite breath takin... give him another season to develop futher he's got that special bit about him.

I love him :drool:

I also believe he'll hit new heights next season. He just seems to have bags of talent and, most importantly, the confidence to come with it. Give him a focal point up front to work around too, as well as a dominating right back who can peel defenders away from him while making overlaps - and I feel he'll double, if not, treble his output this season.
 
He also has very low conversion rate and only 4 goals from his xG=6,5 (pumped by the number of shots he takes). He simply takes a lot of shots from low-quality positions to pull the trigger, I don't think that is enough to call him an attacker if you put this together with his strengths and weaknesses (which again indicate he's much more of a midfielder). It's semantics what we call him, I just made a point about his playing style.

It is however quite funny that if you read through this thread he sometimes looks the most "dangerous" player we have (when Rashford is having a bad day and Bruno is playing a bit deeper), and yet clearly he is the least likely from our attacking formation (apart from Wout) to hurt the opposition. What is bizarre itself.

Bit of a side note but some random podcast I was listening to during the week made two points about his shooting:

1) If you just look at the shots he takes from what we might now think of as his favoured shooting zone (i.e. outside the box, on the right hand side) he's converted way above his xG across his career.

2) Productive shooting from the right generally tends to be rarer than productive shooting from the left, simply because the majority of footballers are right-footed. In other words if you look at where all the teams in the league take their highest quality shots, they tend to skew towards the left hand side. Which means that having someone who can generate a high volume of shots from the right, even less efficiently, carries value in itself.

Basically his spamming of shots from those positions might be a bit frustrating, but in the aggregate those shots likely add value and he will likely score a lot more from them than the average player would

As compared to some of our other players who take shots from low quality positions, where you can't justify it statistically to the same extent.
 
Bit of a side note but some random podcast I was listening to during the week made two points about his shooting:

1) If you just look at the shots he takes from what we might now think of as his favoured shooting zone (i.e. outside the box, on the right hand side) he's converted way above his xG across his career.

2) Productive shooting from the right generally tends to be rarer than productive shooting from the left, simply because the majority of footballers are right-footed. In other words if you look at where all the teams in the league take their highest quality shots, they tend to skew towards the left hand side. Which means that having someone who can generate a high volume of shots from the right, even less efficiently, carries value in itself.

Basically his spamming of shots from those positions might be a bit frustrating, but in the aggregate those shots likely add value and he will likely score a lot more from them than the average player would

As compared to some of our other players who take shots from low quality positions, where you can't justify it statistically to the same extent.

And those are stats that pass the eye test. Yes, he misses a hell of a lot of shots but he also produces genuinely threatening shots fairly frequently. Regularly going just wide, needing a good save, or hitting the woodwork. So there's clearly more to what's going on than some eejit just spamming pointless shots at goal.
 
Bit of a side note but some random podcast I was listening to during the week made two points about his shooting:

1) If you just look at the shots he takes from what we might now think of as his favoured shooting zone (i.e. outside the box, on the right hand side) he's converted way above his xG across his career.

2) Productive shooting from the right generally tends to be rarer than productive shooting from the left, simply because the majority of footballers are right-footed. In other words if you look at where all the teams in the league take their highest quality shots, they tend to skew towards the left hand side. Which means that having someone who can generate a high volume of shots from the right, even less efficiently, carries value in itself.

Basically his spamming of shots from those positions might be a bit frustrating, but in the aggregate those shots likely add value and he will likely score a lot more from them than the average player would

As compared to some of our other players who take shots from low quality positions, where you can't justify it statistically to the same extent.
That might be true if we completely ignore that when he doesn't score a goal we lose the ball easily. Now it's quite tricky discussion between keeping it safe ala Sancho and shooting at every ocassion like Antony, but still the point stands.
Personally I don't mind him taking those shots when we're against packed defense and looking for a spark, the problem is when he ignores other options and pulls the trigger from low-quality position to shoot. I don't think his goals from that position will ever make that much of a difference overall, but this is not a problem really - not compared to the other areas where he isn't that good.
 
And those are stats that pass the eye test. Yes, he misses a hell of a lot of shots but he also produces genuinely threatening shots fairly frequently. Regularly going just wide, needing a good save, or hitting the woodwork. So there's clearly more to what's going on than some eejit just spamming pointless shots at goal.
He’s 7th for shots per 90 minutes in the Premier League. He’s currently joint 73rd for goals. It’s weird how anybody could construe his shooting as a positive.
 
Man Utd 4:1 Chelsea
Wishing Antony a speedy recovery, He'll be a loss in the FA Cup final especially for his defensive work and other wingers aren't really clued in that regard.
 
Very weird injury, Ten Hag says it looks serious but doesn't know what it is. Wishing him a speedy recovery or at least something that will allow him to have a complete recovery.
 
The one thing was that he tried to get up so maybe ankle or something like that?
Guess we will find out tomorrow
 
The one thing was that he tried to get up so maybe ankle or something like that?
Guess we will find out tomorrow

Ligament or metatarsal I think, couldn't put weight on his foot and he immediately knew when it happened probably the latter imo.
 
Quality control
Career ending injury Hoof the ball
 
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Hope he has a speedy recovery. Looked like he was in a lot of pain. The challenge didn’t look that bad. Good job it’s nearly end of season. Gives him plenty of time for recovering just like with martinez.
 
Feel gutted for him and hope it's not as serious as it looks and he recovers quickly.



:rolleyes:
Promotion ending post?
Taking the micky out of a similar post for Martinez injury

Well worth receiving 3 warning points for, nice one mods :rolleyes:
 
It's a shame for him that he'll miss the final. Hopefully he'll recover in time for the start of next season
 
He looked in great pain. I hope it's not as serious as it seemed, it will further complicate his adaptation process. Also infuriated me to see that none of his teammates go and check him out. Fecking idiots.
 
Hopefully he's back in time to get ready for next season. It would be a shame if his second season here was derailed by this.

Really curious to know what the injury was since it looked so innocuous.
 
I feel sorry for the lad and hope it’s not too serious and he makes a good recovery, in time for the pre-season.
As for the team, this injury could have been a blessing in disguise if we had a couple of more games to go, as we might have seen a more productive effort on the right with Antony unavailable.
Antony flatters to deceive, with his frustrating poor decision making and blinkered running. He hasn’t impressed me much at all so far.
Hopefully ETH and his coaches will work on him and next season sees an improvement.
 
Looked like he had the same sort of injury as Eriksen
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Such a real shame to lose him with the FA Cup final in mind.

Hopefully, he will come back fully fit and even stronger in time for next training camp.
 
Hopefully he's back in time to get ready for next season. It would be a shame if his second season here was derailed by this.

Really curious to know what the injury was since it looked so innocuous.

Those are often the worst ones. Take Garnacho being injured by a stock full back challenge a few weeks back too.
 
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