[RedDevilCanuck]

2 dribbles and 3 key passes. Went to the byline and used his right foot a few times. An improvement from last season so far.

He messed up a few times too but for some to stick the knife in when the midfield was a shambles and Rushford was sulking is dumb.

 

[Enigma_87]

The main worry with him is predictability and lack of explosivity with the ball. He just doesn't have the first step to take advantage of the defender against him.

Needs a lot of work.

 

[Red in STL]

He doesn't have a right foot. So unless Tan Hag shifts Antony to LW, he won't be capable of crossing it to anyone.

Luke Shaw doesn't have one either but he cored a belter last season with it so there's still hope

 

[simplyared]

Same story: starts off looking sharp and getting involved. Some nice touches etc etc. Then his inadequacies get the better of him he starts losing possession, makes bad passses, shooting's way off and he loses self confidence, becomes an embarassment and ETH hauls him off.

 

[Still Going…]

He's hard-working, he's got a great engine, he presses well, he's got an excellent first touch, no doubt about those. But, he's just not good enough at pretty much everything else. He doesn't use his right foot, he doesn't shoot well (even on his left), and he can't measure a pass well. I'm starting to give up on him now. We need some threat up front and he offers almost nothing there. I've seen glimpses that he can be better, but he has to show it in a run of games for me to not think he's a dud. I'm not expecting he'll do it, to be honest.

Then we can try Mount out on the right to try and limit the damage he does to our midfield. I'm sick to the back teeth of the piss-poor recruitment.

 

[Lyng]

This video does a great job to pinpoint why Antony is such a huge issue for us.
Yes he gets on the ball a lot but that is because Wolves let him. He is so predictable and makes the wrong move and final decision so often that simply allowing him to receive the ball, makes it easy to shut our offensive movement down completely.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Seems weird to point out Antony's performance, when the whole team was really shit. I thought he was the best of the front three, which is not saying much, but still.

 

[Jeffthered]

I think the issue with Antony is whether he has the ability or potential to really represent a Man Utd first XI. And that is, in my opinion, very questionable. ETH mentioned that he needs to 'look after himself' and go to the gym.. basically, he needs to get stronger. But that's just one thing.

I see Antony playing more centrally, I think playing on the touchline is simply not working for him in the Premiership. The standard is too high, and he doesn't trouble defences.. we all see it.

So I see him adapting his role a bit.. maybe being an explosive No 10, think of Dybala (who is a far better player though..). That central area, off the Centre Forward may help him. Because he is at the moment isolated and this highlights his limitations, which is frustrating, and puts us, as a team under pressure, because he carries little threat. I expect forwards to be able to control the ball, and pass it inside. That is not worth EU80m. Sorry, and this is on ETH as much as it is Antony. They need to address this. Quickly. Urgently in fact.

 

[IrishRedDevil]

Lock him in a room and make him watch Saka reels.

 

[Lyng]

Seems weird to point out Antony's performance, when the whole team was really shit. I thought he was the best of the front three, which is not saying much, but still.

Rashford doesnt work as a CF. That was clear as day against Wolves as well. But we know that him on the left would make us much more dangerous.
The problem with Antony is that him, in his favoured position, makes us far to easy to lock down. He is way to predictable and one footed for this system to really work. Having Eriksen helps mask it because he can make those extremely difficult passes through the middle when we are completely blocked of. With Casemiro being the only deep lying midfielder, we are much more reliant on our wings being able to create space and Antony moving centrally actually does the opposite.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Rashford doesnt work as a CF. That was clear as day against Wolves as well. But we know that him on the left would make us much more dangerous.
The problem with Antony is that him, in his favoured position, makes us far to easy to lock down. He is way to predictable and one footed for this system to really work. Having Eriksen helps mask it because he can make those extremely difficult passes through the middle when we are completely blocked of. With Casemiro being the only deep lying midfielder, we are much more reliant on our wings being able to create space and Antony moving centrally actually does the opposite.

I don't disagree. Just thought he did alright compared to the rest of the forwards. Regarding him being predictable he actually beat his man going to the right at least once, so that's a small sign of improvement.

But yeah, there are definite issues with Antony and the way he plays.

 

[Rossa]

The main worry with him is predictability and lack of explosivity with the ball. He just doesn't have the first step to take advantage of the defender against him.

Needs a lot of work.

Actually, he's very quick off the mark. His top speed isn't all that special, albeit not slow, but he is quite rapid off the mark. The problem is that he looks like he is overthinking everything. In one instant, he dribbled past his defender, raced ahead of him, the defender still lying on the ground, Antony having acres of space ahead of him, and for some inexplicable reason, he turned backwards only to be tackled by the player still on the ground. That was something I haven't seen before.

 

[Rozay]

Never a EUR100M player so if fans insist on judging him on that benchmark then he's always going to fail.

My benchmark for him is 26 years old, EUR65M Raphinha at Barca and in comparison Antony has been decent enough for us. He still has a ton to improve on but I'm already seeing an improved player from last season. I can only hope he continues that trajectory and match Raphinha's level in a year or 2.

It’s not an arbitrary yardstick we have chosen, it’s what he cost. Your 65m yardstick is in fact arbitrary, and makes little sense to me tbh. You can even decide to judge him as an 8m player which is what we paid for Pellistri and assess him from there if you want. Fact is, he was 100m, and is not very good. Teams don’t have the luxury of several 100m forwards, and generally, when a team stretches to one - it is because they expect them to be the difference maker in their team. Antony isn’t nearly that, and as a result, he has been a failure so far. That he has been less of a failure by a random line we have drawn in the sand means little, and that can be done for every player to absolve them (except Weghorst, who was held to the lowest possible bar of simply being cheap loan cover and STILL contrived to be a disappointment).

 

[Chief123]

Olise for £35m, Antony for £85m. Make it make sense.

One had a release clause, one didn’t. It makes sense.

 

[Frank White]

2 dribbles and 3 key passes. Went to the byline and used his right foot a few times. An improvement from last season so far.

He messed up a few times too but for some to stick the knife in when the midfield was a shambles and Rushford was sulking is dumb.

Jesus christ the standards truly are in the bin when it comes to rating some of are players.

 

[Idxomer]

One had a release clause, one didn’t. It makes sense.

Antony for 85m will never make sense.

 

[Chief123]

Antony for 85m will never make sense.

Neither will a lot of transfers that have happened. Every sale is not always a fair price.

 

[Jeffthered]

One had a release clause, one didn’t. It makes sense.

No. It does not make sense. I do not understand why some of our fans seem to find it so impossible to state the obvious. This isn't personal. And just 'liking' a player will not change the reality.

Antony is a limited player, that's clear and we have an issue in trying to accomodate that, because it's affecting our team. I have no idea how he can get 'better', rather I think he needs to change his role to become more effective. Similar to Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool.

Antony puts our other players under more pressure to perform, when he should be a player who should taking the pressure of the team, through his talent. Rashford gets nothing from him, nothing at all. He can't cross. So tell me why this player is so coveted by some...? Because we bought him? Well, it isn't working out.. Schneiderlin, Lukaku, Sanchez, Sancho, Da Silva, Depay... I could go on and on and on about 'big' transfer going to United and not really doing that much.

Why some deny this, I will never know. Big clubs buy players, sometimes it doesn't work out, but well run clubs recognise this and move them on. Antony would not interest any other team in the Premiership. You think he would improve Wolves?

Too many of us accept average players and I don't get it. Klopp doesn't. Pep doesn't. Yet we should?

 

[Chief123]

No. It does not make sense. I do not understand why some of our fans seem to find it so impossible to state the obvious. This isn't personal. And just 'liking' a player will not change the reality.

Antony is a limited player, that's clear and we have an issue in trying to accomodate that, because it's affecting our team. I have no idea how he can get 'better', rather I think he needs to change his role to become more effective. Similar to Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool.

Antony puts our other players under more pressure to perform, when he should be a player who should taking the pressure of the team, through his talent. Rashford gets nothing from him, nothing at all. He can't cross. So tell me why this player is so coveted by some...? Because we bought him? Well, it isn't working out.. Schneiderlin, Lukaku, Sanchez, Sancho, Da Silva, Depay... I could go on and on and on about 'big' transfer going to United and not really doing that much.

Why some deny this, I will never know. Big clubs buy players, sometimes it doesn't work out, but well run clubs recognise this and move them on. Antony would not interest any other team in the Premiership. You think he would improve Wolves?

Too many of us accept average players and I don't get it. Klopp doesn't. Pep doesn't. Yet we should?

Lovely rant but you completely missed the point. The OP was questioning how cheap Olise was in relation to Antony. Olise had a release clause that’s why. Yes we over paid on Antony.

But the argument was pointless. It’s like saying how did Haaland cost £55m and Mudryk close to £100m.

 

[KD6-3.7]

He's far too predictable and just seems to offer no end product.

Just give Pellestri a couple of games and see what happens.

 

[Red in STL]

Antony for 85m will never make sense.

Would he make sense if it had been 30m?

 

[Idxomer]

Saw some highlights and in his first two actions he picked the wrong option with a badly weighted pass.

Not only is his technique mediocre, but his footballing IQ is also very low.

 

[Lentwood]

Sick of transfer fees being used to bash our players. The fact is, we're one of the world's biggest and richest clubs, we're going to struggle to buy players for £30/40m because by definition, as soon as we're interested, a player becomes a £60m+ player by default (depending on age/contract situation).

Some posters think it's clever to say "XXXX is too much, Borussia Monchennobody paid XXXX for Carlos Kickaballos and he's loads better"...completely misunderstanding how the economics of football transfers works.

We should only really care what they do on the pitch. Yes Anthony is frustrating and has deficiencies, but they can be worked on. We all saw against Wolves that he skinned the fullback by going on the outside on his right foot for a change...he just needs to work that into his game once or twice a match and he'll be so much the better for it.

Overall, he's still one of our two best wide forwards, so I'm not sure why he gets more stick than the likes of Sancho, Garnacho, Martial etc....again, it's probably the fixation with the fee we paid.

He's hard working, he is tenacious, he fights for the ball, he can beat a player, he has a great strike...the tools are there...he needs confidence and coaching and we'll have a good player on our hands

 

[glasgow 21]

Sick of transfer fees being used to bash our players. The fact is, we're one of the world's biggest and richest clubs, we're going to struggle to buy players for £30/40m because by definition, as soon as we're interested, a player becomes a £60m+ player by default (depending on age/contract situation).

Some posters think it's clever to say "XXXX is too much, Borussia Monchennobody paid XXXX for Carlos Kickaballos and he's loads better"...completely misunderstanding how the economics of football transfers works.

We should only really care what they do on the pitch. Yes Anthony is frustrating and has deficiencies, but they can be worked on. We all saw against Wolves that he skinned the fullback by going on the outside on his right foot for a change...he just needs to work that into his game once or twice a match and he'll be so much the better for it.

Overall, he's still one of our two best wide forwards, so I'm not sure why he gets more stick than the likes of Sancho, Garnacho, Martial etc....again, it's probably the fixation with the fee we paid.

He's hard working, he is tenacious, he fights for the ball, he can beat a player, he has a great strike...the tools are there...he needs confidence and coaching and we'll have a good player on our hands

Correct, were are something like 16m a year on fee so year 2 he is 48m left on the books ? if that is correct on a 5 year 80m contract. So is 48m easier to swallow? In this environment and good season and Antony is worth way more than that in any market. It basically your mates rubbing you for paying 50 grand for that 5 year BMW you have had for 5 years.

 

[troylocker]

I wonder if we will ever see him fire a shot with power or with a straight wrist. He just seems to love passing the ball the oppo goalkeeper or outside the oppo goal. He is the player who fires the second most shots per 90 in our team (Garnacho fires most shots) and is the worst finisher. He has the lowest key passes/ xA of our attacking players + midfielders and his decisionmaking is questionable. A frustrating player to watch more often than not, unfortunately. I can't see why ETH starts him over the other options available.

 

[Oldyella]

Seems weird to point out Antony's performance, when the whole team was really shit. I thought he was the best of the front three, which is not saying much, but still.

It's the Antony performance thread? Others are being talked about as much in their threads too.

 

[Baxquux]

Setting aside the acceleration stuff and one-footedness, I just have so little confidence with him measuring a pass when we have overloads against a backtracking defence. We could have 4 against 2 defenders and 50% of the time if not more he makes a bad passing decision in terms of the player or the weight of pass, when he doesn't try one of his curlers. It's pretty shocking for a 40, let alone 85m player. You might as well get Andros Townsend for a couple of years for buttons or, now, free, who at least carries the ball up to 18 yard box with pace and strength, and then just ask him to lay it off instead of going for the spectacular -likewise Adama Traore. Those are just extreme illustrative examples, though I think they're both slightly over-maligned, but the general point stands, I think. Even with the defensive stuff, we can more or less train any player with an 'engine' and some degree of motivation to stay in the team to track back sufficiently .

 

[redIndianDevil]

Still don't think he has the explosiveness required for PL, he always seems too slow with the ball. Look at how rapid the likes of Saka, Martinelli are. I don't think he will ever get that explosiveness. I was hoping we'd sign an attacking RB to compliment Antony but it didn't happen. But he was one of the few good player against Wolves IMO.

 

[redIndianDevil]

I wonder if we will ever see him fire a shot with power or with a straight wrist. He just seems to love passing the ball the oppo goalkeeper or outside the oppo goal. He is the player who fires the second most shots per 90 in our team (Garnacho fires most shots) and is the worst finisher. He has the lowest key passes/ xA of our attacking players + midfielders and his decisionmaking is questionable. A frustrating player to watch more often than not, unfortunately. I can't see why ETH starts him over the other options available.

What other options? Bruno at RW didn't do much either last year.

 

[Shane88]

Where attacks go to die. He is 5/10 across the board in everything he does. Just so limited.

 

[troylocker]

What other options? Bruno at RW didn't do much either last year.

Any other option really. Sancho, Rash, Mount, Garnacho, Pellistri or Bruno.

 

[redIndianDevil]

Any other option really. Sancho, Rash, Mount, Garnacho, Pellistri or Bruno.

Mount is the one option we should have tried. All the others you suggested would have been equally bad. I'm hoping we'd try to shift Mount to the right side as well.

 

[Bondi77]

Maguire has become a world wide meme - a player who you can make a 10 minute compilation of clownery that includes holding back his own players, mispassing the ball over the line for a corner instead of to his keeper, several comical own goals and countless moments of horrible defending. He has zero fight or intensity in him. It barely looks like he wants to win.

No matter what Antony does, he'll never be Maguire.

Definitely no chance of Antony captaining the team to 2nd and 3rd in the Premier League then so I have to agree.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Lovely rant but you completely missed the point. The OP was questioning how cheap Olise was in relation to Antony. Olise had a release clause that’s why. Yes we over paid on Antony.

But the argument was pointless. It’s like saying how did Haaland cost £55m and Mudryk close to £100m.

Why didn't we sign Olise for £35m?

 

[Grande]

It’s not an arbitrary yardstick we have chosen, it’s what he cost. Your 65m yardstick is in fact arbitrary, and makes little sense to me tbh. You can even decide to judge him as an 8m player which is what we paid for Pellistri and assess him from there if you want. Fact is, he was 100m, and is not very good. Teams don’t have the luxury of several 100m forwards, and generally, when a team stretches to one - it is because they expect them to be the difference maker in their team. Antony isn’t nearly that, and as a result, he has been a failure so far. That he has been less of a failure by a random line we have drawn in the sand means little, and that can be done for every player to absolve them (except Weghorst, who was held to the lowest possible bar of simply being cheap loan cover and STILL contrived to be a disappointment).

I always think it’s lazy and irrelevant to drag fees into the picture when discussing a players performances. It’s even worse then ‘heeis overrated/underrated’. It’s not really relevant to a players performance, it’s speaking about some other people’s previous evaluations.

Fair enough if you say, I think we’ll get 100m for him if sold, so regarding transfers, I think we can get more money that we can use elsewhere.

The only actually relevant side to it regarding a players actual performances, is that there are so many people going with such lazy monikers that it can actually affect a player in the long run, which is why Sir Matt Busby negotiated Tommy Taylor’s fee down by one pund to £29.999 pound back in the day.

 

[Grande]

I’ll repeat myself in these player threads for now: The performance against Wolves was clearly a collective issue, not an individual one, so this is a silly time to make up summaries about individual players’ capacities.

 

[zaafi]

Why didn't we sign Olise for £35m?

He has 2 open-play goals in 63 PL appearances. You would lose your shit if he played here.

 

[Rozay]

I always think it’s lazy and irrelevant to drag fees into the picture when discussing a players performances. It’s even worse then ‘heeis overrated/underrated’. It’s not really relevant to a players performance, it’s speaking about some other people’s previous evaluations.

Fair enough if you say, I think we’ll get 100m for him if sold, so regarding transfers, I think we can get more money that we can use elsewhere.

The only actually relevant side to it regarding a players actual performances, is that there are so many people going with such lazy monikers that it can actually affect a player in the long run, which is why Sir Matt Busby negotiated Tommy Taylor’s fee down by one pund to £29.999 pound back in the day.

It’s not lazy, it’s straightforward and to me, common sense. You say discussion should be limited to performance only, yet performance itself is measured against expectations.

A player being considered to have ‘played well’ is subjective and dependent on various factors. The performances of Garnacho last season were widely praised, yet they were praised within a particular context of him being 18 and debuting. Ultimately, if he was 27 and cost 100m - do you think it reasonable for the fact that he is 27 and cost 100m to be disregarded and for his performances to be praised in the same way, because ‘measured as if he were 18 and free, he’d be doing well’?

Antony cost 100m, is a full international for a country famed for producing world class forwards, is 23, not 19. These are the factors in which influence perception of performances. Antony will be judged based on his fee, and I imagine he would also be played based on his fee so works both ways. The club will invest time in him getting it right whereas if he cost less he’d have probably lost his place to Pellistri by now.

 

[Rozay]

I’ll repeat myself in these player threads for now: The performance against Wolves was clearly a collective issue, not an individual one, so this is a silly time to make up summaries about individual players’ capacities.

And the performance before that and before that? We have seen our players play before, nobody is silly enough to make definitive statements based on one game.

Do you find Antony’s performance to be out of character or something?

 

[Chief123]

Why didn't we sign Olise for £35m?

Because we have bigger problem areas than wings at the moment. Budget is tight. FFP. Usual.