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Antony’s career at Manchester United has been catastrophic.
It all began so well on a lovely sunny September afternoon at Old Trafford, when the Brazilian latched onto a through ball by Marcus Rashford and buried a cool finish to the right of Arsenal keeper, Aaron Ramsdale.
Old Trafford erupted and welcomed their new £86m Samba trickster.
The Brazilian would score in his next two league games, including a wonder strike at the Etihad to break a club record as the first United player to score in their first three Premier League matches.
However, his first season was marred with inconsistency and his second season has been an unmitigated disaster.
Antony has only scored twice in the FA Cup and created one assist. In fact, the winger has not scored a Premier League goal since the 16th of April last year.
His massive downturn in form has even seen his biggest fan, Erik ten Hag, drop him to the bench and his season hit an all-time low when he was left out in favour of the inexperienced Omari Forson against Fulham.
However, things looked slightly up for him when one of his two FA Cup goals came in the 87th minute to draw United level against their bitter rivals Liverpool and gave the team the platform to win 4-3 in extra time to advance to the semi-finals of the competition.
Moreover, in the interest of fairness, there is one thing that United’s second most expensive signing in history does do well.
Statistics from FOTMOB, show that Antony leads the league in possessions won in the final third.
The former Ajax player averages 1.6 turnovers per game and no player in the league does this better.
This contrasts massively with Marcus Rashford, for example, who is rightfully often criticised for his lack of desire to run and make defensive contributions.
Antony can be criticised for many aspects of his game but a desire to press and help the team defensively is certainly not one.
Moreover, Ten Hag made the baffling choice at the start of the season to turn United into a high pressing, transition based team despite finding success last year following a different style of football.
It has not been popular with fans to say the least, as it has left the team woefully exposed on the counter and the club have been ridiculed for the huge gaps that frequently appear between the defence and midfield.
However, perhaps if every United player carried out the manager’s instructions in the same away Antony did, there might be more merit to the Dutchman’s tactical ideas.
Nonetheless, £82m is supposed to buy you much more than pressing effectively, so unless there is a spectacular change in Antony’s goal and assist output over the next two months, this particular stat is highly unlikely to save his Old Trafford career and nor should it.