Antony | On loan to Real Betis

Shane88 said:
He looked okay when paired with Amad out on the right.
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Antony has been underperforming for a while now, but loaning him out left me puzzled—especially considering our shortage of wing-backs. One of his better performances actually came in that role, where he linked up well with Amad, as you pointed out. From my perspective, it was a far more attacking and dynamic option compared to relying on Mazraoui as a wing-back, which is now our reality, sadly.
 
Let’s hope it continues and we can sell him in the summer, he’s not suited to the Premier League but he should be able to have a good career elsewhere.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Not just that, but they completely overruled the scouts who had pinpointed all his (now obvious) limitations and who had valued him at around 20-30m.
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ETH used his own sons analyst data and his friends agency for some of the deals and their associated scouting network outside the clubs.
ETH really grabbed cash for himself and his crew / family / friends. Corrupt as it gets.
 
Antony handed the nr. 7 shirt at Betis and, from what I saw of the game, he looked really good. Like watching a different player and I can't get my head around it.
 
What is his book value in the summer? Is it a realistic possibility to not take a loss on him if sold?
 
Jam said:
What is his book value in the summer? Is it a realistic possibility to not take a loss on him if sold?
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I think it's hard to match the stupidity of our former negotiation team, so, probably not.
 
Bobski said:
I am a bit surprised he wasn't tried at LWB to be honest. For all his flaws he never shirked a bit of hard work, it was worth trying before this Dorgu lad was brought in.
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It was what I was expecting to see when Amorim came in, having a hard working left footed winger at LWB just made sense to me.

Of cause Antony gets MOTM.
 
This was always going to happen.

Best outcome for all parties is he continues to perform well and someone takes him permanently in the summer.

You could see Rashford net 10 goals for Villa by the end of the season too.

It's the right decision to move both players on, however.
 
He's a player who could score 20 goals between now and the end of the season, get MOTM every game, and I still wouldn't want him back.
 
Bobski said:
I am a bit surprised he wasn't tried at LWB to be honest. For all his flaws he never shirked a bit of hard work, it was worth trying before this Dorgu lad was brought in.
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I was surprised by this as well. He did ok at RWB. You’d think he’d have been better at LWB. I wonder if he was unwilling.
 
The Spanish league might be a better fit for his attributes.

Happy to hear he had a positive debut.
 
RuudTom83 said:
The Spanish league might be a better fit for his attributes.

Happy to hear he had a positive debut.
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Will be very interesting to see how he does, obviously we want him to do well for his price but if he and Rashford start playing well you do have to look inward a bit at our setup and ask questions in my opinion.

We have literally every attacker bar Amad struggling, it’s unlikely they’re all just not good enough.
 
We kill so many players, it's amazing how badly good players perform for us. Why is it? The pressure of playing for United must just be on a whole different level.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Antony has been underperforming for a while now, but loaning him out left me puzzled—especially considering our shortage of wing-backs. One of his better performances actually came in that role, where he linked up well with Amad, as you pointed out. From my perspective, it was a far more attacking and dynamic option compared to relying on Mazraoui as a wing-back, which is now our reality, sadly.
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He threw a temper tantrum last season though when asked to play that type of role, despite it being absolutely vital in the late stages of a cup tie. It seems unlikely that he’d now be happy to play there regularly and the fact he wasn’t even tried at left wing back suggests he was probably resistant to the idea.
 
simonhch said:
It's mind boggling that an organisation as sophisticated as a modern premier league club, can make an investment of over 80m pounds essentially just on the say so and recommendation of one bloke. If this was any other business, and we weren't talking about signings in football, the amount of data, risk analysis, opportunity cost analysis etc that would take place for an investment of this size, would be staggering. But Premier league clubs seemingly throw this sort of money around on a few weeks or months notice, and then act surprised when it blows up in their face. It's genuinely staggering to me, because you know that clubs have pivoted to a different player - at the last minute - just because he was available, and then made massive investments of 30, 40, 50, or 60 plus million based on a tiny amount of actual analysis.

People seem to think that because they have seen a player play, maybe a lot, that that is all that needs to be known in terms of a signing's suitability. Just look at Casemiro. Spent all summer chasing De Jong, then pivoted to Casemiro, a completely different type of player at a completely different phase of his career, and invested 60m in him plus 350k a week. He's a midfielder, and a defensive one at that, we need a midfielder - and a defensive one - he's won loads for the mighty Real Madrid, and he wants to come. Let's blow the bank on signing him.......Any detailed analysis of the situation, undertaken with suitable risk analysis and due diligence, would've taken months (and that's with the benefit of tons of scouting and performance data), and it would've clearly shown that there should be a hard cap on what was reasonable to invest in him. It would've been half of what we paid.

It's truly mind boggling when you think about. Antony (82m), Sancho (73m), Casemiro (60m) is 215m pounds on just three players, that have all been a colossal waste of money. It's nearly a quarter of a billion pounds, a third on the say so of one bloke, another third as a last minute pivot option, but at least you can say we chased Sancho for a couple of years at least before he signed. The question is, why didn't the two years of scouting and heavy targetting of Sancho reveal that (a) he preferred to play off the left, not the right as we needed, and that (b) he had a suspect work attitude and ethic? Both of those points were discussed in this forum many times prior to his signing. I myself got caught up in the excitement of it all, but there were others saying he was a bad fit. Preferred the left, had a suspect attitude at Dortmund etc. And yet, the mega-club, with all it's resources and data, didn't red flag any of that on such a massive investment?

It's shocking how badly this club has been run. And it is either going to take a really long time, at least 3-5 years to turn it all around, or a MASSIVE wedge of cash that is so big it could only come from outside investment, such as bringing in a third major owner to the club.

We are super fecked in the short term.
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bosnian_red said:
Everyone always overrates how players do on their debuts... Fotmob stats don't really show him doing much, but who knows maybe it doesn't show in the numbers..
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It's of those "won't that be a nice gesture" motd awards.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Will be very interesting to see how he does, obviously we want him to do well for his price but if he and Rashford start playing well you do have to look inward a bit at our setup and ask questions in my opinion.

We have literally every attacker bar Amad struggling, it’s unlikely they’re all just not good enough.
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Yeah its the billion pound question...how do you solve the United problem.
 
I hope he does well and kills it in that league.
Always tried his best but it wasn’t good enough. No shame in that and an £80m price tag was not his fault. You can tell he gave it t everything:
Have no hard feelings towards him (unlike rashford)
 
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