You can't make a constructive criticism after just a few games where he came in new league with new teammates, you just can't, and I include over the top positive comments too. There is nothing "constructive" in criticisms in this thread, it is still too early.
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You can't make a constructive criticism after just a few games where he came in new league with new teammates, you just can't, and I include over the top positive comments too. There is nothing "constructive" in criticisms in this thread, it is still too early.
After 2 league games, it’s not constructive to make definitive statements as multiple people are doing.
There’s a number of posters who want to be the first to tell you how X Player is insert negative here.
Whats bullshit? That I gave him 6/10? The fkn CAF average rating is 5.8!
And Im the asshole negative one. You couldnt make this sht upYou were trying to sound clever whilst slagging off one of our players, who's done just about as much as anyone could have asked him for so far. You also made a point about Rooney and Rio coming in and knowing they had to work hard and show they were worth the money, something that Antony has also done, tearing around the pitch like a mad man to make an impression.
I just don't understand why you feel the need to introduce negativity when there's no call for it.
Whats bullshit? That I gave him 6/10? The fkn CAF average rating is 5.8!
You've also repeatedly said bullshit like he's a 50million player (not that that means anything in the grand scheme and is an incredibly juvenile way to categorise and rank players).
My point was you claiming to have higher standards was bullshit. Any post I've seen from you has been critical of him. You've decided on a very arbitrary way to assess him and seem hell bent on using that to beat him with.
He only scores very good goals!
Well all you said is just nonsense. Where is my post being critical of him? I said he is playing like a 50 mill player. Not that he is a 50 mill player. Thats actually a compliment. If you are playing as a 50 mill player then thats not bad at all is it?
Didnt slag him off. Said I expected more. Didnt try to sound clever. It was basic English. Didnt say Rio and Rooney wre trying harder than him. I said they knew they had to justify their price tag. That doesnt mean he doesnt or he isnt trying. Can anyone read English?
You're all over the place.
If playing like a 50 million player is not bad, then why bring it up in the first place? Seems like an odd thing to say unless you're trying to praise him; but considering he cost 85 million that seems incredibly unlikely.
What else have I said that is "nonsense"? That you have a very arbitrary and juvenile way of assessing players? You've just proven that to be true again. That you claiming your criticism proves you have higher standards? Again, self fellating bullshit.
What exactly do you expect from him? He's come into the hardest league in the world and scored against the 2 strongest teams in the league in his first 2 appearances. Has he looked like prime Ronaldo? No, but he's done well enough for a young lad in a new league around new players.
Why bring Rooney and Rio into the discussion if you didn't mean to compare them? I can see no reason for it, especially since it's been over 15 years since either of them signed for us. Surely a more appropriate comparison would be Sancho or Maguire?
Literally everything you accuse me of and insult me with I have proved that I didnt say. Show me 1 thing. I dare you. Prove it. As I said before the CAF average rating is 5.7. So do the majority expect more or are they happy with 5.7? Oh what a bunch of self fellating arseholes that are on the CAF. How fkn dare they expect more! Like what do they expect of him. I rest my case - You have lost yr fkn minds.
Using the transfer fee against Maguire is unfair as well. He didn't choose to make himself the most expensive defender in the world, and that is 100% on the club. When buying a player from a financially strong club who doesn't want to sell you will always have to overpay, and it's simply unfair to blame the player for that. It sets players up to fail through no fault of their own.
Once the player is at the club he should should be judged on his actual performance levels, with his wage having some impact on that judgement. For example someone like De Gea who is by far the highest paid goalkeeper in the world despite being exceedingly average for the last four seasons should be held to a higher standard than a keeper who is on less than a quarter of his wage. Forget the transfer fee since he had nothing to do with it. If we overpaid (which we have for Antony) then put the fault of that at the feet of the club. The club would most likely have overpaid just as much for other players you consider 'only' worth 50m.
Nunes should be getting slated for his performances so far (long may it continue), while Liverpool should be slated for the fee they paid.
I'm perfectly content with his contribution so far, I expect there is far more to come.
Forget the transfer fee? Since when has this ever happened? Thats my exact point. Its not even a thing. No one has ever forgotten the transfer fee until they have proven they are worth it. Then its forgotten. This has never happened in the history of football for large purchases. Please someone correct me if Im wrong but I have never heard the oh never mind the transfer fee until recently with United.
We use to give players a season to settle, now they seem to get a couple of games….
Every single man and his dog knows we overpaid for Antony. We had to. Just like we did with Casemiro. Just like we did for Martinez. Just like we have for most of our transfers over the last few years (decades?). Partly because we are in a position of weakness so clubs know they can hold us over a barrel, and partly because all clubs know that we tend to overpay so it becomes a repeating cycle. If you are going to hold that against every single player we sign then it's setting yourself up for disappointment and the players up for failure.
If a player is playing well he's playing well, regardless of what he cost.
You haven't proven anything. You have repeatedly referenced transfer fees to criticise, or in some twisted way apparently praise him.
You keep moving the goal posts and then start pearl clutching when you're called out.
Like I said, you're all over the place.
Explain your rationale rather than getting on your high horse when called out.
In what way is calling him a 50 million player (or saying he's playing like one as of there's any real difference) praising him? We're all aware of his fee. You're on record in this thread saying the player has some responsibility for that high fee (which is again bullshit).
What in your opinion justifies a 85 million fee? I've pushed you on this before and you conveniently avoided the question.
You've made bizarre false equivalences about Rio and Rooney, despite the fact that both of said players had certain question marks over them early in their career. The other strange thing with this comparison is that Antony has been one of our hardest working players in the games he's played in, suggesting he wants to justify his fee with his work rate at the very least.
Yes everyone knows we overpaid. No one is arguing that. But at the same time everyone judges players by their transfer fees and their wages. Thats just a fact. Is it or is it not?
You guys are clearly bored. It's far too early to make any assessment. There's no denying that it will be hard for him to justify the price tag, but let's give him some time. He already scored two beautiful goals, so it's not like he hasn't made any contribution whatsoever.
You're missing my point. Someone on here stated that I was expecting Ronaldhino or some nonsense. I never said such a thing.
I named a number of young players who we have spent stupid money on for v little return. It happens, and I fear that Antony may be the same. Being 'ok' is not what you expect from one of the most expensive players in our history.
Many quote his age, yes, look at at. Compare to Rooney, CR7, etc etc at his age. They were hungry as heck. They wanted to make an impact.. I could go on, look at Class of 92'... I'm talking about how a player comes into the side and what impact they have. Attitude. Rushford had a super impact when he came into the side, and then became side-tracked and now look.
Sancho is being questioned on here for this very reason. Huge fee, negligible impact. Where is his focus?
Why is it when one questions these issues for Antony, people act as if someone is being unfair? It's not personal, it's observation.
Antony was hardly involved against City and wasn't interested in the Europa games. Look at how hard Ronaldo worked in that Europa league match. He wad determined to make a difference in that game. So what's stopping Antony showing such effort?
If the Antony of the last couple of games is what we feel is acceptable, then fine. But I cannot see that worthy of such investment.
Probably because he’s played 2 fecking league games, against the league’s current top 2, and scored in both.
I’d understand in a few months, but even without the goals it’s madness now. With the goals it’s just moaning for moaning sake.
It really isn't. Goals or not, he already is playing differently to the way he played at Ajax and given the money the club has already wasted on guys who looked like world beaters elsewhere only for them to come here and retreat into a shell, nobody can blame fans for expressing concern. He has played 4 games and has not looked anything like what we hoped to be getting from Ajax, goals be damned (one of which did not matter because he was anonymous the rest of the game). Its not to say that he won't ever fulfill his potential but if you spend 84 million Pounds on a player you'd hope that he hits the ground running if he's truly as great as the price tag suggests.
Put down the crack pipe for a second and try to understand simple English.
In what way is calling him a 50 million player (or saying he's playing like one as of there's any real difference) praising him?
As I said in an earlier post the loads of top forwards have gone for around 50 mil. Jota/Diaz/Mane etc Thats doesnt mean Im comparing these players. Im just saying the standard that 50 mil will buy in the market. Me saying he is at that level is a compliment. There are some great players going for that fee. Im saying if we bought any other player around 50 mil this is what I would expect from his first few games but I expect him to do more/level up.
We're all aware of his fee. You're on record in this thread saying the player has some responsibility for that high fee (which is again bullshit).
You say bullshit. I say otherwise. I expect responsibility and accountability, you expect a free pass. Lets agree to disagree.
What in your opinion justifies a 85 million fee? I've pushed you on this before and you conveniently avoided the question.
This is an impossible question. The only answer is a top player. At what point did Van Dijk justify his fee? Has Messi justified his move to PSG? Its impossible to quantify. You just know. This kids special and no one talks about the fee anymore
You've made bizarre false equivalences about Rio and Rooney, despite the fact that both of said players had certain question marks over them early in their career.
I want comparing them as players. I was giving examples of players that came to United for top transfers and had huge expectations on their heads. They had to fight to justify those fees. No one said forget about the fee about any of them. Or about anyone else that I know of. That doesnt mean they were awesome from day 1. I think Rios first game for Leeds they were hammered 3-0 and he went there for a record price. But I can guarantee you no one said forget about the fee after the loss. They were saying 18 fkn mill! He better do better.
The other strange thing with this comparison is that Antony has been one of our hardest working players in the games he's played in, suggesting he wants to justify his fee with his work rate at the very least.
I never said anything about his work rate and as above I wasnt comparing him. I was saying that he needs to justify his fee like every other player has done in the history of football
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You can ALWAYS say what you see. If and when a player settles, matures, gets older, gets stronger and shows better as all the mitigation suggests - then you should also say better then too.
How can you watch 5 games from a player and say ‘no comment’? Like, the asterisk is obvious, it doesn’t even need to be spelt out. We know the player is new, we know the player is young and all that - but you can say that ‘he looks slow on first viewing to me’ if he indeed looks slow on first viewing. It doesn’t need to be permanent and people don’t need to be sensitive about it.
I’d also argue that judging performances through a prism of just adding imaginary qualities that you have yet to see yourself but have concluded will come later only leads to disappointment. Seen it time and time again with either new players or academy players. It’s just all of a sudden almost that a player stops becoming new and then the tone changes overnight. It’s like people suddenly become able to say what they see, and the perception is always that the player isn’t showing the promise they were apparently showing before, but IMO, that promise was almost always largely imagined. It was the promise from the skewed context of ignoring and explaining the bits you don’t like, and then them suddenly becoming a problem for you later. And there will always have been a few people who had raised concerns about those same things all along, but people were not willing to have a convo with any ‘negativity’ over a new/young player.
For what it it’s worth, this isn’t even my position on Antony specifically, I have liked what I’ve seen - but clearly others have some concerns, although I’d like to think they are open minded enough to know that things could change over time. But denial of what you see gets nobody anywhere. What’s the point in a performance thread if you can’t even say what you think about a performance?
You're literally comparing them. Not off to the best start here.
How is Antony responsible, let alone accountable for his transfer fee? This is such a bizarre take and I'm not the only one to call you out on this. You're out on your own here. It makes no sense and doesn't justify your odd posts whatsoever. Especially when you go on to say...
Don't put words in my mouth.
So here you finally acknowledge it's impossible to quantify a player's worth based on their transfer fee. Yet only a paragraph earlier you've claimed he is responsible and accountable for his fee. Almost as if you have an agenda...
You were.
No-one has claimed Antony has been awesome. But he also hasn't been bad, or hammered. But he still has certain people questioning him based on his transfer fee. Something you have previously acknowledged is "impossible to quantify" yet have continued to bang that drum and bring up transfer fees.
He's played 4 games in total. 2 in 2 in the league. So far he's doing pretty well justifying his fee. Again this just points out the futility of analysing him, especially in regards to the fee paid as he's barely been here long enough to assess whether he's justifying ten Hag's decision to spend so much on him. Maybe your ramblings will have more credence after Xmas. A better time would be at season's end.
More of a spliff man.
Took all my willpower not to correct all your grammatical errors in the quotes. I let it slide because you're using simple English.
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Couldn't have said it better.
No different to people who brought up Sancho's pace right from the start and were told by some it wasn't an issue. Sometimes things just are what they are.
I'm still judging Antony so have no definitive thoughts about him yet but so far there is merit in some of the criticism of his style of play.
We should give him more time. It’s too early to judge him, same with Casemiro, fans putting pressure on players, especially this early would only make things worse. If it has been let’s say a season or two then we can make a correct judgment, but assessing his value this early is only emotional talk and not a rational judgment.
Obviously the price tag is crazy, and almost everyone agrees we overpaid, but we did, and he’s here, now let’s give it some time. Not many expensive players can hit the ground running and completely change teams right away, yes Haaland is doing it, but he’s playing for city, which is on another level of everyone, and have been for a while now, that’s not the normal circumstances.
Obviously the price tag is crazy, and almost everyone agrees we overpaid, but we did, and he’s here, now let’s give it some time. Not many expensive players can hit the ground running and completely change teams right away, yes Haaland is doing it, but he’s playing for city, which is on another level of everyone, and have been for a while now, that’s not the normal circumstances.
Both him and Sancho need to impose themselves more in the game. I want to see them terrifying the fallback and causing chaos in the oppositions box.
3 stunning tap-ins from him now!
He’s doing really well to keep Elanga on the bench
He’s doing really well to keep Elanga on the bench
Thought he was good again.
So far for his poor end product.
Tap in merchant
I see a lot that I like.
Well taken goal, hoping his decision making and final ball will improve though.
Given it's early days, positive start for him.
Given it's early days, positive start for him.
The first United player to score in each of his first 3 PL games. Not too shabby.
He is going to get better, good signs. We need a RB who is properly going to overlap
Quality goal. And should have been picked out on a couple of counters and we would have been away.
Say what you want about the rest of his game while he’s finding his feet but the guys a killer. One of those players that when he absolutely has to score, does.
He's nothing like Nani really, is he? He's pretty solid in possession, gets into some great positions and is a bit more cautious. Like what I'm seeing so far.
A lot of people wanted another Nani and we got one.
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