Maybe the people managing him were useless. 
Antony | On loan to Real Betis
- Thread starter Shark
- Start date
This is good news. Hopefully someone will offer 30m and we can reinvest.
And then when we draw Sociedad they will completely outplay us.
We might actually end up getting a bit of money for him.
Right decision to let him go, he isn't suited to this league - similar to Sancho. The wrong decision was not getting in a replacement.
Right decision to let him go, he isn't suited to this league - similar to Sancho. The wrong decision was not getting in a replacement.
Well done to him! Doing well.
shows you how shit other leagues actually are
It’s mad how cursed this club is, fully expect Rashford to start banging them in as well once he’s freed from us poisoning them.
It's fan voted and therefore subject to epic memery etc, but I'd say he actually deserves this one.
Nah just shows how absolute crap our full backs and midfield are. There's definitely talent there.
The Rashford situation wasn’t down to ability, it was effort.
Well they have the best team in the world from that league. Who always seem to dominate Europe
I genuinely do as well. I actually think he has the attributes for it. Especially at LWB.
Doesn’t mean the league’s any good as a whole.
He was useless on the wings for us, a one trick pony with little output.
But I do wish he had been tried at wing back for more than 1 game.
He wa
Bother watching it. And see how often small teams give Barcelona and Real a run for their money.
Hope every goal he scores get trending, the English media turned him into a meme. Which was unfair at the time.
Happy for him.
Happy for him.
Last edited:
Got to say. That's a cracking goal.
Put him on a plane, fly him back from Spain
True. But city won our league 4 times in a row. Does that mean ours isn’t good?
His ratio of bangers to normal goals is too high. Shows of a player that isn't really consistent.
He doesn't tend to score easy goals even in his better form.
He doesn't tend to score easy goals even in his better form.
Didnt he say himself he didn't want to switch to that position?
Cannot understand all the goodwill on here
He is by far my least favourite United player in history. He was absolutely abysmal for us. His attitude was terrible (the way he celebrated in the Coventry players faces when they should have beaten us)
The utterly stupid pirouette he did
The off the field incidents
The ridiculously over the top celebration after scoring a tap in against the mighty Newport county
Good riddance and the same goes for the corrupt manager who spent 80 million on him
He is by far my least favourite United player in history. He was absolutely abysmal for us. His attitude was terrible (the way he celebrated in the Coventry players faces when they should have beaten us)
The utterly stupid pirouette he did
The off the field incidents
The ridiculously over the top celebration after scoring a tap in against the mighty Newport county
Good riddance and the same goes for the corrupt manager who spent 80 million on him
"Did a spin once" in a list of top reasons why you hate him illustrates the completely irrational hatred he got from a lot of our fans. Absolutely melted people's brains, that.
not as I remember. He said he was surprised at being asked to play there in the FA cup as he never had before. And had a bit of a tantrum on the pitch. But then he made some appearances at RWB so not sure why that stopped as he was ok. Maybe there was an issue behind the scenes.
You dont like him because..he celebrated a semi final penalty shootout and a goal ?
He started off really well for Ajax and us and now Betis. Seems to get figured out by defenders, but La Liga is a much better fit for him than the Premier League.
Seeing him do a Lingard on loan is great, it’s a huge and unexpected bonus. Let’s hope we make the most of it in the summer.
Seeing him do a Lingard on loan is great, it’s a huge and unexpected bonus. Let’s hope we make the most of it in the summer.
A change of scenery can give anyone a boost. And said scenery being an inferior league also helps of course.
That being said, one must wonder how gloomy our club is behind the scenes.
That being said, one must wonder how gloomy our club is behind the scenes.
Actually created a penalty (which was missed), scored a banger and got an assist!
Like with Rashford and Casemiro, they all could have played a part on the pitch but I think/hope the reason for their treatment is facilitate a transfer in the summer. If that's the case, then fair enough. Specifically for Antony though, even with his poor form and recent showings, he could have been a 'good' RWB behind Amad.
Well done to him!
The media is pathetic really. The journalism levwl dropped so much the past years.
Zirkezee was called a flop already in september.
That and all the other reasons I listed in the post and several more I didn’t.
So celebrating us getting through cup ties, and 1 moment of admittedly silly showboating that took 2 seconds.
By god he should be beaten with bats!
And 50+ terrible performances for the club while being paid £10.4 million per year
Maybe he is just suited to that style of football. Doesn't necessarily mean the league is shit.
Spanish teams have dominated European competitions for last 15-20 years.
What's his book value in the summer, around £32m? Can we get anyone to pay that even if he has good form for Betis? It's still a lot of money for non-top clubs and foreign clubs.
Worried he'll end up on loan somewhere again next season.
Worried he'll end up on loan somewhere again next season.
Both are reasons to be angry at whoever signed him.
Antony has a degree of good will with me because it's not really a player's fault if they aren't quite good enough as long as they try.
He came in, gave his all, never disrespected the club and ultimately wasn't at the required level. The vitriol in your post towards him doesn't reflect the reality of the situation.
Are you saying the prem the only good league in the whole world? Antony was shite for us in Europe too
Think this and Amorim replacing Ten Hag mostly shows that this isn't really an issue of a particular manager or individual members of the squad, but rather a collective thing and (or?) one of belief.
Some talents really shine through, but no player can shine all the time, especially not to the level of lifting up the entire team. Amad is allowed to have a bad game and it not resulting in imminent crashing down of the whole team effort. Zirkzee and Hojlund are allowed to be shaky without this meaning the burden of no goals is on them. Mainoo is allowed to have the second season syndrome. Etc etc.
I know it's easier to say the squad is horrible, the manager is clueless, the board is full of devils who don't care, etc. But things haven't worked in a long time, for various reasons. To the degree that every hit is bigger than it should be. Ten Hag isn't the first coach to have bad luck with injuries, or with players who (might) bring others down due to their presence/behaviour/whatever, nor is Amorim.
Clubs like Brighton and Forest have shown some great scouting, just like Leeds and Leicester did before, but chances are that United wouldn't be back to their former glory if they got Kante or Caicedo to unlock Pogba or keep Bruno in check/unburdened.
We see signs of promise with a new plan, but it seems like every single hit has a bigger impact, almost consistently successively. Players lose faith in the manager or at least the plan, their teammates or themselves (or their part in this greater whole).
This squad isn't as bad as it looks. Today is a bad example if looking at United, but even then, a degraded Casemiro, an inexperienced forward line, an imperfect backline composition, wingbacks we can't expect too much from, a 10 (and captain) in a 6/8-hybrid role should still do a job, even if a shaky one.
Onana is still the CL-final keeper that absolved City's regular pressure gameplan. De Ligt isn't as stable as expected, but both him and Maguire have shown here and elsewhere to be better than this. Mazraoui has been a major highlight until he joined the rest of the group a bit more, same for Amad and Garnacho, to some degree Hojlund. Zirkzee has a great debut but then one or two misses and his confidence was basically gone entirely for months, making him look like an amateur.
Say what you want about the Serie A, Eredivisie, La Liga, CL group stages, but players have shown to be much better than this and there's a difference between not being good enough to keep up with the BPL and not being capable to do anything at all. Then you either have a huge misfit or something else is going on.
No matter how bad or unlucky the scouting department and technical boards are over here, or how skilled these managers have been or haven't, it's way easier to count to people who aren't underperforming.
It's too easy to think of simple solutions, and if they'd work no team would go under, no company would fall at all. Luck is definitely a factor if it comes at the right time, but this team looks like it needs a run of things going their way. Perhaps the injuries could be a blessing in disguise as the new players have nothing to lose and all to show, while the expectations of the other players turn more and more to make-do, which hopefully takes some pressure off and brings in some skills to the playsets.
But - again, no easy solutions - this squad either needs smaller or bigger changes to what they're used to. Whether Ten Hag was too stubborn for too long with his plans or Amorim is now, there is no stability in these players, so either the big clean up needs to be gargantuan, or go back to (individual) basics without adding more headache to heads already filled with so much stuff that gets in the way that new fancy Amorim-ball doesn't seem like the right time. You'd almost think it'd be a better time for someone like Ole with no plan but more outspoken belief in his players' abilities, and though it did cost him, was not afraid to hang back and counter if his team couldn't string together passes. It did make Bruno look like a superstar. Now it's been a debate for 3 or more years whether he is (one of) the main culprits to the current team not being able to control a game.
If you want a new plan you need a real people manager for this squad like Simeone (though I can imagine a language and culture barrier there possibly), who got a lot of discipline, stamina and defensive skill in a squad while looking like he got a higher percentage of his squad to go along with him than I think I've ever seen. Can only think of clashes with Felix and even that came later. I kinda thought Amorim would be more of a people manager, but his "I believe in my capabilities" and "this is the worst squad ever" when things get rough make me doubt that. I think it's fair to allow him some (major) tactical transfers before a final judgment, but so far it looks like letting Van Nistelrooy pull the strings for a while could've been better, though of course it made sense to go all in for this new great promise in the manager world. But sometimes the new and improved and more attractive successor to a (peak) Mourinho is a Villas-Boas.
I detoured quite a bit, but even if Antony isn't good enough to carry a 100m pound label around, he wasn't as horrible as we've seen. Betis or not, LaLiga or not, being 70% of a PL players is not 0% of a football player. Maybe he's no Robben, but he can do a jobben.
Not every Serie A season XI member and talent of the year will be a success after that season, but Zirkzee is a very good footballer, Hojlund is a promising striker in his own way, Garnacho is a good energetic and assertive winger, Amad is creative and has more of a silky touch, Mainoo was "better than Scholes at that age", Bruno was a very good and efficiently direct #10, Rashford inspired "Rashy vs Mbappe" debates, Casemiro and Eriksen were too old but technically apt still. The list goes on. The squad may not be ready, but it's not 15th place bad. Antony might not be a title winner winger, but he's not a 15th place unused substitute winger.
Perhaps ETH was overrated at Ajax, perhaps Amorim was at Sporting. But ETH wasn't Mr. Decay and Amorim isn't a 15th place level coach. Even with the "worst United squad of all time" he isn't. Hopefully his stubbornness now will lead to a resurrection next season, but I'm almost starting to think the process and bad luck of ETH had a stronger argument going for it than what's happening now.
But again, no simple solutions, maybe if lucky, but especially what-if scenarios will never lead to anything.
Good to see Antony do something again. It still kinda irks that we can't know what was true about his stuff outside of the fields as if true it is hard to ignore, and now the unknown doesn't help forgetting those allegations either. If they were all false I do hope that this change helped him get the mental reset he needed, I can imagine that - beside Utd doing to players what Utd does - such a case - and especially with the public level of it all - affects one a lot mentally, especially when you have to prove to the world you're not just good enough for United, but worthy of their superstar level price tag. Money is just an abstract thing and all, and it was the board's fault for being horrible negotiators and planners for at least that deal, but all the stuff you read about Antony and the deal, here and elsewhere, makes it hard to ignore. He underperformed, Pogba underperformed, Sancho underperformed. Those deals took away options to get alternatives (let alone elsewhere), and whatever kind of people they were or are, those deals are not their fault. If they got big contracts out of it, kudos to them for being better negotiators than the Utd teams they got the deals out of.
I was never a huge Antony fan, but it is a talented player and it would be nice to see more highlights of his pop up every now and then.
Yeah, but it's easier to pretend the squad is objectively bad and the board and ETH just collected a bunch of 68 rated cards for millions of pounds instead of 90+ ones.
It's not even that long ago when players coming from the PL were almost guaranteed to be failures in Spain. Maybe the English weather just sucks the talent out of players and makes it all look harder that way.
Some talents really shine through, but no player can shine all the time, especially not to the level of lifting up the entire team. Amad is allowed to have a bad game and it not resulting in imminent crashing down of the whole team effort. Zirkzee and Hojlund are allowed to be shaky without this meaning the burden of no goals is on them. Mainoo is allowed to have the second season syndrome. Etc etc.
I know it's easier to say the squad is horrible, the manager is clueless, the board is full of devils who don't care, etc. But things haven't worked in a long time, for various reasons. To the degree that every hit is bigger than it should be. Ten Hag isn't the first coach to have bad luck with injuries, or with players who (might) bring others down due to their presence/behaviour/whatever, nor is Amorim.
Clubs like Brighton and Forest have shown some great scouting, just like Leeds and Leicester did before, but chances are that United wouldn't be back to their former glory if they got Kante or Caicedo to unlock Pogba or keep Bruno in check/unburdened.
We see signs of promise with a new plan, but it seems like every single hit has a bigger impact, almost consistently successively. Players lose faith in the manager or at least the plan, their teammates or themselves (or their part in this greater whole).
This squad isn't as bad as it looks. Today is a bad example if looking at United, but even then, a degraded Casemiro, an inexperienced forward line, an imperfect backline composition, wingbacks we can't expect too much from, a 10 (and captain) in a 6/8-hybrid role should still do a job, even if a shaky one.
Onana is still the CL-final keeper that absolved City's regular pressure gameplan. De Ligt isn't as stable as expected, but both him and Maguire have shown here and elsewhere to be better than this. Mazraoui has been a major highlight until he joined the rest of the group a bit more, same for Amad and Garnacho, to some degree Hojlund. Zirkzee has a great debut but then one or two misses and his confidence was basically gone entirely for months, making him look like an amateur.
Say what you want about the Serie A, Eredivisie, La Liga, CL group stages, but players have shown to be much better than this and there's a difference between not being good enough to keep up with the BPL and not being capable to do anything at all. Then you either have a huge misfit or something else is going on.
No matter how bad or unlucky the scouting department and technical boards are over here, or how skilled these managers have been or haven't, it's way easier to count to people who aren't underperforming.
It's too easy to think of simple solutions, and if they'd work no team would go under, no company would fall at all. Luck is definitely a factor if it comes at the right time, but this team looks like it needs a run of things going their way. Perhaps the injuries could be a blessing in disguise as the new players have nothing to lose and all to show, while the expectations of the other players turn more and more to make-do, which hopefully takes some pressure off and brings in some skills to the playsets.
But - again, no easy solutions - this squad either needs smaller or bigger changes to what they're used to. Whether Ten Hag was too stubborn for too long with his plans or Amorim is now, there is no stability in these players, so either the big clean up needs to be gargantuan, or go back to (individual) basics without adding more headache to heads already filled with so much stuff that gets in the way that new fancy Amorim-ball doesn't seem like the right time. You'd almost think it'd be a better time for someone like Ole with no plan but more outspoken belief in his players' abilities, and though it did cost him, was not afraid to hang back and counter if his team couldn't string together passes. It did make Bruno look like a superstar. Now it's been a debate for 3 or more years whether he is (one of) the main culprits to the current team not being able to control a game.
If you want a new plan you need a real people manager for this squad like Simeone (though I can imagine a language and culture barrier there possibly), who got a lot of discipline, stamina and defensive skill in a squad while looking like he got a higher percentage of his squad to go along with him than I think I've ever seen. Can only think of clashes with Felix and even that came later. I kinda thought Amorim would be more of a people manager, but his "I believe in my capabilities" and "this is the worst squad ever" when things get rough make me doubt that. I think it's fair to allow him some (major) tactical transfers before a final judgment, but so far it looks like letting Van Nistelrooy pull the strings for a while could've been better, though of course it made sense to go all in for this new great promise in the manager world. But sometimes the new and improved and more attractive successor to a (peak) Mourinho is a Villas-Boas.
I detoured quite a bit, but even if Antony isn't good enough to carry a 100m pound label around, he wasn't as horrible as we've seen. Betis or not, LaLiga or not, being 70% of a PL players is not 0% of a football player. Maybe he's no Robben, but he can do a jobben.
Not every Serie A season XI member and talent of the year will be a success after that season, but Zirkzee is a very good footballer, Hojlund is a promising striker in his own way, Garnacho is a good energetic and assertive winger, Amad is creative and has more of a silky touch, Mainoo was "better than Scholes at that age", Bruno was a very good and efficiently direct #10, Rashford inspired "Rashy vs Mbappe" debates, Casemiro and Eriksen were too old but technically apt still. The list goes on. The squad may not be ready, but it's not 15th place bad. Antony might not be a title winner winger, but he's not a 15th place unused substitute winger.
Perhaps ETH was overrated at Ajax, perhaps Amorim was at Sporting. But ETH wasn't Mr. Decay and Amorim isn't a 15th place level coach. Even with the "worst United squad of all time" he isn't. Hopefully his stubbornness now will lead to a resurrection next season, but I'm almost starting to think the process and bad luck of ETH had a stronger argument going for it than what's happening now.
But again, no simple solutions, maybe if lucky, but especially what-if scenarios will never lead to anything.
Good to see Antony do something again. It still kinda irks that we can't know what was true about his stuff outside of the fields as if true it is hard to ignore, and now the unknown doesn't help forgetting those allegations either. If they were all false I do hope that this change helped him get the mental reset he needed, I can imagine that - beside Utd doing to players what Utd does - such a case - and especially with the public level of it all - affects one a lot mentally, especially when you have to prove to the world you're not just good enough for United, but worthy of their superstar level price tag. Money is just an abstract thing and all, and it was the board's fault for being horrible negotiators and planners for at least that deal, but all the stuff you read about Antony and the deal, here and elsewhere, makes it hard to ignore. He underperformed, Pogba underperformed, Sancho underperformed. Those deals took away options to get alternatives (let alone elsewhere), and whatever kind of people they were or are, those deals are not their fault. If they got big contracts out of it, kudos to them for being better negotiators than the Utd teams they got the deals out of.
I was never a huge Antony fan, but it is a talented player and it would be nice to see more highlights of his pop up every now and then.
Yeah, but it's easier to pretend the squad is objectively bad and the board and ETH just collected a bunch of 68 rated cards for millions of pounds instead of 90+ ones.
It's not even that long ago when players coming from the PL were almost guaranteed to be failures in Spain. Maybe the English weather just sucks the talent out of players and makes it all look harder that way.
Last edited:
This insane. The least favourite? We've had fecking rapists, racists, players who didn't respect the badge, and egotistical maniace who didn't give an actual shit and you hate him??