Alan Shearer is the latest of many pundits to criticise Antony for his predictable style of play.
The Manchester United winger was up to his old tricks again on Sunday when the Reds were looking to steal a goal against the run of play at Anfield.
Antony, who is frequently able to beat his man with his blistering pace, lets himself down when it comes to using only his preferred left foot. This happened again yesterday when Rasmus Hojlund was in the box, desperately waiting for a cross to come in to try and test Alisson Becker’s resolve.
After skipping past Trent Alexander-Arnold with some clever footwork on the edge of the box, Antony then had to stop and shift the ball onto his left foot before firing a low cross in. While it wasn’t necessarily a bad pass, it did give the Liverpool defenders an extra few seconds to get themselves into position – and they also anticipated exactly what would happen.
Shearer bemoans Antony’s predictability
Analysing the Brazilian’s performance on Match of the Day 2, Shearer expressed how frustrated he’d be if he played alongside Antony.
“On the right-hand side you’ve got Antony, he would do my nut in playing with him because you know 99.9 per cent of the time he’s coming inside on that left foot. Not only do the defenders know, so they can then set themselves,” the Premier League’s top goalscorer explained.
“On the odd occasion if he did go down on the right-hand side it might make it a little bit more difficult, but for a centre-forward, it doesn’t half make it very difficult when he’s doing that.”
"He would do my nut in." 😬
It's fair to say @alanshearer wouldn't like to play alongside Antony.#MOTD2 #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/s8WlhDKaIX
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) December 17, 2023
Footage courtesy of the BBC.
