Manchester United have become a byword for profligacy because of the hundreds of millions they have squandered on players while drifting further away from Premier League or Champions League success.
But even by their standards, Antony stands out as the Premier League’s biggest waste of money. The Brazilian is football’s equivalent of HS2 and he became United’s second most-expensive signing when they splashed out £82million to land him from Ajax on September 1, 2022.
Even judged by today’s crazy transfer market, his fee was way over the odds. Erik ten Hag’s fingerprints were all over the transfer and he reckoned Antony would light up Old Trafford like he had under him at Ajax.
Antony’s statistics at Ajax were impressive and he banged in 24 goals and contributed 22 assists in just over two seasons with the Amsterdam club. The right winger was a regular for Brazil and it seemed he had the world at his feet. But, like his failure to score into an open goal against Southampton the other night, he horribly miskicked. He started off OK and scored on his debut against Arsenal to suggest United had a player.
He finished his first season with nine goals to show glimpses of his talent. But as United nosedived after winning the Carabao Cup, show did he.
It says it all about him that he has more yellow cards than goals for United and he has 14 cautions compared to his 12 strikes. He has also managed just five assists in his two-and-a-half years at Old Trafford. He has no Premier League starts and just one goal this season. That was a penalty against Barnsley in the Carabao Cup when their directors seemed most interested in taking pictures of themselves at Old Trafford.
United would need to sell Antony for £32.52million to avoid making a loss on him under the terms of the Premier League’s PSR and there seems no chance of that. Instead he is joining La Liga side Real Betis on loan for the rest of the season and he will still have two years left on his reported £200,000-a-week contract in the summer.
Antony, 24, hasn’t even looked like a United player and he missed four weeks of last season while he fought allegations of domestic abuse back in his native Brazil. He vehemently denied any wrongdoing and was cleared of all the allegations.
As the goals dried up, he hired a personal photographer to capture him in action and when he scored his only Premier League goal since April 2023 against Burnley in April, he ran to him to pose. He was snapped with a Sonic The Hedgehog toy for his son, who loves the character, and he shoved the matchball up his shirt in a tribute to his pregnant girlfriend. Such gestures would be touching normally, but not when your goals have become as rare as hen’s teeth.
Ruben Amorim will wave goodbye to Antony this month and the South American is a reminder of why his job at United is so difficult as he struggles to rebuild the team while handicapped by PSR. United will have to pay a sizeable chunk of his wages to facilitate the move to Betis and then they will have the same problem all over again in the summer.