Antony at Man Utd: The stats behind the Brazilian’s woeful spell since £81m transfer

Manchester United have spent – and wasted – a lot of money in the transfer market over the last decade in their efforts to claim a first Premier League title since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.

Of all the big-money arrivals to have underwhelmed to varying degrees at Old Trafford – from Angel di Maria to Paul Pogba to Harry Maguire – there is a strong case to be made that the £81 million signing of Antony in 2022 should be considered the biggest United flop.

The Brazilian winger followed Erik ten Hag to the Theatre of Dreams from Ajax after winning back-to-back Eredivisie titles under the coach. United’s summer-long pursuit of the player eventually ended late in the transfer window with the 20-time champions forking out a fee that was a record sale for the Dutch top flight.

In his first season, Antony showed flashes of why Ten Hag was so keen to reunite with him in Manchester, even if it was a campaign largely marked out by inconsistency for the 16-cap Selecao attacker.

There was a run of three goals in as many games early in the season, including a spectacular left-footed strike in a loss to Manchester City, and a goal later in the campaign in a 2-1 Europa League victory over Barcelona.

Antony proved unable to build on those brief moments, though. The 2023-24 season saw the 24-year-old endure a miserable year, usurped by teenage academy graduate Alejandro Garnacho as the club’s first-choice winger opposite Marcus Rashford.

Now, as United look to rebuild under the stewardship of part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS group, the Red Devils are considering selling Antony and view the winger’s true value at closer to just £25 million, as exclusively revealed recently by TEAMtalk.

Here are five shocking stats behind Antony’s woeful Manchester United career to date.

1 – End product as regular as Halley’s Comet

Antony made 29 Premier League appearances last season; 15 as a starter and 14 coming off the bench. That added up to 1,324 minutes of top-flight action for the Brazilian. In that time, he mustered just a single goal and – perhaps even more shocking for a supposedly creative player – only one assist.

That gave Antony an average of a goal contribution every 662 minutes.

2 – Paltry key passes

Another stark example of Antony’s sub-par creativity is found in an analysis of his key passes over his two seasons at Old Trafford.

The former Ajax man produced just 1.4 key passes per 90 minutes in his first Premier League season. He actually improved that figure marginally in his second campaign, up to 1.5 per 90.

But those numbers still pale in comparison to the league’s truly elite chance-conjurors.

Team-mate Bruno Fernandes, for example, averaged 3.3 key passes per 90 last term, while Kevin De Bruyne averaged a whopping 4.3 and Bukayo Saka – a fellow left-footed right winger – averaged 2.8.

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3 – Perplexing percentiles

A further indictment of Antony’s ability to create scoring opportunities for himself and his colleagues – when combining his stats for the Premier League and European competitions last term, his average of 3.82 shot-creating actions per 90 ranks in just the 50th percentile among wingers and attacking midfielders from Europe’s five biggest leagues.

By that measure, Antony is distinctly average. United would have hoped for more from their £81 million man.

4 – Tapering take-ons

As soon as rumours of the Red Devils’ interest in Antony began to spread in the summer of 2022, United fans could have been forgiven for growing giddy after watching highlight compilations of the Brazilian’s skill and daring in one-v-one situations.

He averaged 2.2 successful dribbles per 90 in each of his two Eredivisie campaigns. Since arriving at Old Trafford, however, those averages have fallen. In his first Premier League term, he completed 1.5 take-ons per 90, while last season he registered 1.8.

5 – Eredivisie tax

There is a long history of Premier League club’s signing the best talent from the Eredivisie, and one theme apparent in that time is how greatly the success of those signings can vary.

Manchester United alone count the likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Jaap Stam and Ji-Sung Park among their successful signings from the Dutch top flight. They also have their share of misses, such as Memphis Depay, Alexander Buttner and Donny van de Beek.

Antony, thus far, fits firmly in the latter category. His productivity from his time with Ajax has not followed him to England. In his first season in Amsterdam, he scored nine goals and provided eight assists. In his second and last full season with the Dutch side, he scored eight goals and accumulated four assists.

His total tally for Premier League goals over his two seasons with United (five) cannot even equal his return from either one of his seasons with Ajax.

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