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2023-24 Performances


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4.6 Season Average Rating
Appearances
38
Goals
3
Assists
2
Yellow cards
6
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Possibly the worst winger in the league, right up there anyway. How do City get Doku who wasn't exactly an unknown or a secret gem and we get stuck with this one-footed unproductive Scottish league level don?
 
Seriously I have just watched MOTD and seen the performance from Doku and it made me so sad. How is this happening in 2023 that we are so bad at evaluating talent. This guy is literally not worth 20 million and we wasted 70 million on him because our manager had worked with him before which makes you question the sanity of the manager. Now he continues to play him every game despite no contribution. I remember when people used to say random stuff like he provides balance etc. A 70 million attacker is supposed to provide some output and this guy gives us nothing
 
Possibly the worst winger in the league, right up there anyway. How do City get Doku who wasn't exactly an unknown or a secret gem and we get stuck with this one-footed unproductive Scottish league level don?

Doku got 4 assists today and a goal today. Last 30 appearances Antony has 1 goal and 2 assists
 
Seriously I have just watched MOTD and seen the performance from Doku and it made me so sad. How is this happening in 2023 that we are so bad at evaluating talent. This guy is literally not worth 20 million and we wasted 70 million on him because our manager had worked with him before which makes you question the sanity of the manager. Now he continues to play him every game despite no contribution. I remember when people used to say random stuff like he provides balance etc. A 70 million attacker is supposed to provide some output and this guy gives us nothing
Our second most expensive signing, and he's good for... stretching the wing or some bull like that.
 
He has this season to prove himself.

Currently a new RW is high on the shopping list for the summer. If Antony hasn't improved by then EtH needs to be ruthless, accept it's not working and ship him out to France. Jim will take him at Nice.
 
The funny thing is we were so used to SAFs success as an all-powerful manager that we spent years arguing about whether we needed a DoF or it was just a continental fad that would get no traction in England.

Antony is not only the perfect case study to settle that, it actually makes you seriously question Ten Hag's judgement on actual football matters, let alone working with budgets.
 
Comparing him and Doku just makes me want to cry. We need to sell this guy by January. He is a busted flush.
 
Doubt we’ll be able to sell him, Utd will probably want £60m ….no takers
 
Worst signing for United based on the price. He takes the ball and pass it back, he takes the ball and fail to beat the defender, hardly goes to the byline so another defender just wait for him on the inside. Hardly see him supporting AWB in defence, too short to be defence setup piece. ETH is blind to buy him, he is probably regretting that he was associated with Antony. If Amad is back and Pellestri put in a few good performances, I can see the end of Antony. Just like DVB, ETH tries to keep faith in a former player he knows but ultimately he gave up. Antony will face the similar situation, ETH knows he simply cannot start him. I hope Pellestri earn a chance to play and sit Antony down forever.
 
Antony is not only the perfect case study to settle that, it actually makes you seriously question Ten Hag's judgement on actual football matters, let alone working with budgets.
Think its high time all decision making regarding players and transfers is taken out of Ten Hag's hands as the guy barely has any clue. Just transfer list and sanction the Antony sale whether Ten Hag agrees to it or not. The last person's opinion on players I want to hear right now is Ten Hag's.
 
This season so far he has played 628 minutes in all competitions and has 0 goals or assists. At least last season he was fluking some in but even that is gone now. We are struggling so much to score right now and it isn’t really a surprise considering how much this guy plays
 
He has this season to prove himself.

Currently a new RW is high on the shopping list for the summer. If Antony hasn't improved by then EtH needs to be ruthless, accept it's not working and ship him out to France. Jim will take him at Nice.
Feck that, he shouldn't be starting any longer
 
Another really poor performance, the sooner Amad is available the better. The lack of competition at RW is killing us.
 
I remember when people used to say random stuff like he provides balance etc. A 70 million attacker is supposed to provide some output and this guy gives us nothing
Our second most expensive signing, and he's good for... stretching the wing or some bull like that.
I mean it's not bull. It's very easy to understand what he brings. He keeps width, can carry the ball in the middle of the pitch when on transition (provided he doesn't have to dribble past players), and tracks back.

Some of us have been saying this since last season. That's why he's awful. A winger for United needs to add to the attack. He only has 1 weapon in his arsenal and that's the cut in curler. And it's not even a good weapon. He has to fail numerous times before he lucks one in.

People that think he's just low on confidence are just failing to recognize that he only has that 1 weapon. As I said, any development will be him improving that shot because he has nothing else.

He's crap.
 
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Another really poor performance, the sooner Amad is available the better. The lack of competition at RW is killing us.

No. Really poor doesnt cover it.

Im all for men wanting to dance with eachother - ten Hag and Anthony havinga lot of fun after the carabao win, but this was just ridiculous. A liability.
 
Lousy judgement on football matters is a worse trait for a football manager than insanity. The latter could randomly produce good outcomes.

Think its high time all decision making regarding players and transfers is taken out of Ten Hag's hands as the guy barely has any clue. Just transfer list and sanction the Antony sale whether Ten Hag agrees to it or not. The last person's opinion on players I want to hear right now is Ten Hag's.
But then, that was the entire point of supporting all-powerful managers. If the guy can't tell a player is useless he is probably useless too.

Direction, stability, having the entire setup working coherently... those are all better arguments for taking that off his hands than "he can't tell a good player from a bad one". I mean, WTF?
 
How much City paid for Doku? He's miles better than this fidget spinner. And his attitude is annoying.
 
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My god he has been awful this season. He was never an elite winger but he wasn't this bad last season. Eth is also not helping him with constantly picking him.
 
I think Obertan is still playing. We could go for him in January and he would be better than this bluffer.
 
Yeah, that's the thing. That's a new factor we hadn't even discussed before. He just gets treated like he doesn't belong now. No fear or respect for his game.

No way, I'm still waiting for all the double teams I was told he'd attract! Factor I apparently wasn't taking into account enough this time last year
 
Still staggering that ETH worked with this guy and decided he’s what we need even at big money. That’s going to be a hard one for him to ever shake off.
 
BTW does anyone still believe in him or see any upside to him?
Forget his price for one second
Just him as a player

I'm struggling to find any upside now.
Probably just me.

Watching City play one thing you can notice is they have a lot of ball carriers who are really good at keeping and running with the ball and passing. They don't even need to be particularly quick or powerful and don't even take on defenders much like the usual traditional wingers. They just keep moving the ball around until they have a situational numerical advantage then using their flair to lose their marker and find space. Prime example is little Silva imo. If my memory serves me right he looked quite crap in his first year here as well because of his lack of physicality.

By having those players (and Rodri) City are able to keep and move the ball around really fast thus create many situational numerical advantages and space. Of course Antony atm is looking like utter crap and it'd be stupid to compare him to their players but imo in a right system he'd look much better than now. Where he can us his strength as a ball carrier and his flair to find space. Asking him to work as a traditional inside forward to beat the defender or cut inside to shoot imo will never work. He's simply not fast nor powerful enough and he has a weak shot.
 
Possibly the worst winger in the league, right up there anyway. How do City get Doku who wasn't exactly an unknown or a secret gem and we get stuck with this one-footed unproductive Scottish league level don?

i feel that at this point, even Doku would struggle at United. Not defending Antony, I think he has limited ability, but this is where we’re at now. Everyone seems like an absolutely terrible footballer in a United shirt.
 
Probably just me.

Watching City play one thing you can notice is they have a lot of ball carriers who are really good at keeping and running with the ball and passing. They don't even need to be particularly quick or powerful and don't even take on defenders much like the usual traditional wingers. They just keep moving the ball around until they have a situational numerical advantage then using their flair to lose their marker and find space. Prime example is little Silva imo. If my memory serves me right he looked quite crap in his first year here as well because of his lack of physicality.

By having those players (and Rodri) City are able to keep and move the ball around really fast thus create many situational numerical advantages and space. Of course Antony atm is looking like utter crap and it'd be stupid to compare him to their players but imo in a right system he'd look much better than now. Where he can us his strength as a ball carrier and his flair to find space. Asking him to work as a traditional inside forward to beat the defender or cut inside to shoot imo will never work. He's simply not fast nor powerful enough and he has a weak shot.

I see something in him as well, for what it's worth.

The strengths he does have (on form); retention of possession, quick feet in tight spaces, ability to safely advance the ball up the pitch with the ball at his feet and/or buy free kicks, good defensive work rate etc are probably the kind of profile you want on that side when your other main attacking outlets (Rashford and Bruno) are massive gunslingers who take risks to make something happen and lose the ball a lot.

If he even plays how he did for most of last season and just sorts his shooting out, he'll be a perfectly solid player for us. I think he's statistically one of the absolute worst finishers in European football over the last year - it's a level that's unsustainably bad if he was actively trying to put the ball in the stands. Despite never being massively prolific, his shooting stats were actually above average at Ajax and in Brazil, and if he can just get back to being even half decent at that one aspect, he's a much bigger threat.

For context, his finishing (goals - xG) among AMs and wingers was 56th percentile with Sao Paulo, then 94th and 73rd across two seasons at Ajax. With us over the past year, he's in the 1st percentile. The absolute dirt worst. He simply can't continue to be quite that bad.

He'll never be Arjen Robben, and he'll likely never fully justify the outlay, but there's a decent player in there who offers things we don't get from the rest of our attack, if he gets out of this absolutely appalling form.
 
I see something in him as well, for what it's worth.

The strengths he does have (on form); retention of possession, quick feet in tight spaces, ability to safely advance the ball up the pitch with the ball at his feet and/or buy free kicks, good defensive work rate etc are probably the kind of profile you want on that side when your other main attacking outlets (Rashford and Bruno) are massive gunslingers who take risks to make something happen and lose the ball a lot.

If he even plays how he did for most of last season and just sorts his shooting out, he'll be a perfectly solid player for us. I think he's statistically one of the absolute worst finishers in European football over the last year - it's a level that's unsustainably bad if he was actively trying to put the ball in the stands. Despite never being massively prolific, his shooting stats were actually above average at Ajax and in Brazil, and if he can just get back to being even half decent at that one aspect, he's a much bigger threat.

For context, his finishing (goals - xG) among AMs and wingers was 56th percentile with Sao Paulo, then 94th and 73rd across two seasons at Ajax. With us over the past year, he's in the 1st percentile. The absolute dirt worst. He simply can't continue to be quite that bad.

He'll never be Arjen Robben, and he'll likely never fully justify the outlay, but there's a decent player in there who offers things we don't get from the rest of our attack, if he gets out of this absolutely appalling form.
Totally agree.

I've been saying for ages he must stop thinking he's some Robben and just keep working hard to progress the ball forward then pass it to someone who actually can shoot. And keep working hard when we don't have the ball. However atm he's simply utter crap at everything so benching him is actually the only option imo.
 
BTW does anyone still believe in him or see any upside to him?
Forget his price for one second
Just him as a player

I'm struggling to find any upside now.
Antony has been a rather fascinating signing for me ever since we were pursuing him and he was an unknown entity pre-Hag. I thought he'd be a success here for a few reasons:

  • We'd cater to his game absolutely, by bringing in an electric, highly skilled overlapping fullback (I'm talking Mazraoui / Hakimi level)
  • He'd be coached and the weaker parts of his game eliminated
  • We would have a cohesive, Ajax-style attack, with lots of movement and chaotic actions orbiting him
  • He would be a better athlete than he is (this has probably been the biggest surprise)
  • He'd be far better at combination football as a whole than he is.
  • He'd be downright better skilled as a footballer

Goals, in and of themselves weren't as important as him being a playmaking winger who would constantly probe opposing backlines for pockets of space before threading balls (or himself) through them. I'll maintain he's the kind of signing you simply bypass if you're not going to give him what is essentially a world class overlapping FB; he *needs* a support flanker to the point of dependency. I didn't expect him to be so reliant on that, but the PL is like the slaughter house if you don't have the athleticism and/or wits or skill to cope - you have to find an effective lane, and it has to be known by all so that they have something to fear/respect you for. Antony's really is eroding now, as the level of respect he's being given is reducing.

Ultimately, if we are to ever see the real Antony, the conditions are the same; he never came up (made his name) without that level of FB who is a dream over-lapper. That is just a fact, so being shorn of that gives a skewed perspective of the player - if he ever manages to play with a Mazraoui/Hakimi level FB here and is just as atrocious, then that's really all there is to it. The question in the meantime is whether he has enough about his game in - what are for him - inopportune conditions - as an isolated, sole entity. A more natural winger who is expected to go it alone with no concern for anything around him. Does he? Well, the first issue he has is that he's really not good with progressive passing. If you can pass and move, you have no reliance on dribbling to evade markers, and you can still have them on toast without a single piece of trickery, so much so, even, that they don't know how to treat you because a lot of the same tenets of then getting too close and leaving space to be played around, are there. Jadon Sancho at his best is a perfect example of how a playmaking winger can use team-mates for intricate passing chains that leave markers for dead. Antony, however, is very inconsistent and unsure of himself when it comes to those simple, but rapid passing interchanges. Confidence is playing its part there, too. He's no Sancho at that stuff, but he's better than he's showing.

The second issue is he has to be able to beat at least a man more often than not, he's supposed to be wide man, ffs. Obertan, Richardson, Bebe, you name it, amongst our worst wide players, they could all beat a man. It's actually alarming how bad he is at getting round a single marker - you don't see that in the PL. Every wide player can beat a FB! It's part of the remit, otherwise how are you a wideman? Even if your preferred avenue is pass and move, beating a man as and when you have to is bread and butter. I'm not talking about slaloming through bodies, just a single man 1on1. Quite honestly, if this is something he truly cannot do, there shouldn't be a place for him as a starting winger. It's inexcusable and unfathomable and a lot of it has to be confidence based for him. I understand his issues with staying ahead of his FB, but beating them initially is paramount otherwise how can you be considered any type of winger? I'm going to put his woes down to his head being scrambled here because even if passing and moving is preferred, a winger has a prerequisite to be able to beat *a* man as and when needed to keep him honest.

My issue with Antony will always be that he doesn't warrant all the PT to work on his game. It's totally unfair on the others vying for the position, especially so when they too have things to work on and improve. Antony should not get all the PT because he excels in a few attributes. It's ridiculous for him to get runs of games where, say, a Pellistri gets hooked and not seen again for weeks on end. When Amad enters the fray, he too, needs to be given a fair chance to make his impression. It's even more poignant because neither Pellistri or Amad have that utter dependency on their FB to be effective, which, even in itself, gives them an inroad for Antony's PT. We don't need a defensive winger to the extent offensive contribution can be overlooked. Right now, Antony's no Dirk Kuyt, for example, who is considered a donkey who at least had his say on the offensive end - compared to Antony's contribution's, he's Cristiano Ronaldo... a Manchester United wide-man simply should not be a lesser Dirk Kuyt under any circumstances.
 
Why did he cost so much? Could have bought Kane and played him there for that price.
The fact that TH had worked with him before is hilarious /unbelievable!
 


Apt for here because it highlights both the 1 on 1 aspect as well as the good footballer aspect. You obviously want all attackers to have both, ideally, but usually wingers are heavily tilted toward the 1 on 1, as it's their job, for the most part. The good footballer bit, more reserved for play-making wide-men, even if applicable to other wide-types, it's more expected that a play-maker will be a very good/exceptional footballer.

.... I think the problems we have are pretty clear...
 
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