Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag is not short of options when it comes to the wide areas, that’s despite the summer sales of Jadon Sancho to Chelsea on a loan-to-buy deal, and Facundo Pellistri to Greek side Panathinaikos.
The Red Devils’ Dutch manager has tended to favour Marcus Rashford and Amad Diallo on the left-wing and right-wing respectively this season, and his trust has been repaid.
Rashford has three goals and one assist in six games, while Amad has one goal and assist apiece in the same number of outings. Alejandro Garnacho has even more, with four goals and three assists in six games.
However, there is one United winger who has not really got much of an opportunity this season and has really found his best form at United. That player is Antony.
Antony’s record for Man United
The Brazilian winger joined the English giants from Ajax towards the end of the summer transfer window in 2022, signing for a whopping £81.3m. Sadly, he has not been able to live up to such a price tag and has failed to show the form he did at Ajax.
The winger, who won an Olympic Gold medal at Tokyo 2020 with Brazil, had a great record during his time in Amsterdam. The 24-year-old played 82 times for the Dutch giants, scoring 24 goals and grabbing 22 assists. Not only that, the Sao Paulo youth product was famed for bringing Brazilian flair to the Eredivisie, and was known to have bags of tricks, including his famed spin.
However, his form in England has been a far cry from what he showed in Amsterdam, both in terms of his goals and assists and the skilful side of his game. He has scored just 12 times and has five assists in 84 games, with three goals and two assists coming in 38 games last term.
Despite this poor form, he has scored some crucial goals for the Red Devils. That includes a winner against Barcelona in the 2022/23 Europa League and a strike against Liverpool in last season’s legendary FA Cup quarter-final.
With that being said, it has not really worked out for the winger at Old Trafford. In fact, just two years before signing him, the Red Devils released an academy graduate who has been producing better numbers than the Brazilian.
Man United's mini Vinicius
The player in question here is Leeds United and Belgian winger Largie Ramazani. He made the move to Elland Road and United’s big rivals Leeds this summer, who bought him from Spanish outfit UD Almeria.
Since departing Old Trafford in 2020, the attacker has been superb, seeing success in the second tier of Spanish football before performing well in La Liga. Last term, he actually outscored Antony, scoring four goals and five assists in 31 appearances in all competitions.
2020/21
La Liga 2
23
4
1
2021/22
La Liga 2
30
8
1
2022/23
La Liga
33
3
2
2023/24
La Liga
29
3
5
Having sensationally been described as a “mini-Vinicius” by football talent scout Jacek Kulig, he is a direct winger who loves to drive at defenders and beat them in one-vs-one situations, similar to Real Madrid’s Vini in that sense. Last term, the Carrington graduate completed an average of 1.1 dribbles per game in La Liga, as per Sofascore.
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United may well regret allowing the Belgian to leave the club on a free transfer back in 2020. Had he agreed a new deal, they could have given him one or two loan deals before integrating him into the first team, thus meaning they saved money on Antony.
United fans and the board at Old Trafford alike may well look back on this deal regretfully. They might well wish they had kept someone who could have added great depth out wide and been the next great Carrington graduate.
Man Utd thought they had the next CR7, now he's worth even less than Antony
The talented international just could not make it work at United, and now he’s playing outside of Europe entirely.
1 ByJack Salveson HolmesSep 18, 2024