Manchester United’s current crop of loaned-out senior players have enjoyed considerably better form in their new environments rather than Old Trafford.
Indeed, this has been the case for Antony, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, though the latter is still far from the level anyone expected of him in comparison to his Borussia Dortmund days.
Antony, in particular, has enjoyed a stellar upturn in his performances and output, having departed United in the winter without a single Premier League goal to his name.
The Brazilian has since notched two goals and two assists in five La Liga appearances, as well as a goal in the Europa Conference League.
There is no buy clause included in his loan terms with the Spanish outfit – but that’s not to say Betis aren’t preparing to sanction his arrival in the coming months. Previously, club CEO Ramon Alarcon stated they expected to have Antony at their disposal long-term while also claiming the player himself had confirmed his desire to stay in Seville beyond the summer.
In line with that, it seems as though Ruben Amorim won’t be in any rush to keep the 25-year-old in M16, as he said of the £86 million man: “When you play against any team in England, the physicality is there. If you don’t have physicality, you will struggle a lot.
“Antony is so much better now in Spain. It’s [because of] a lot of factors, but I guarantee you it’s physicality.”
Amorim riles up Antony’s entourage with ‘superficial’ claims
Such a statement has seemingly rubbed Antony’s team the wrong way, as his agent, Junior Pedroso, directly responded to the United boss, saying (via Marca): “We respect the opinion of coach Ruben Amorim, but we completely disagree with his analysis.
“To attribute Antony’s lack of success at Manchester United solely to a physical issue is a very superficial argument and out of touch with reality. Antony did not have enough prominence or the confidence needed to show his best football.
“Of the 15 games that Amorim managed at Manchester United, Antony only played in nine, with a total of 252 minutes played. This represents only 18.6 per cent of the total possible minutes (1,350 minutes). How can you judge a player without a minimum sequence that demonstrates his worth?”
“This statement, even if unintentional, ends up devaluing La Liga and the Spanish competitions. Spanish football has one of the most competitive leagues in the world, with top-level teams that constantly compete in the final stages of the Champions League and the Europa League,” Pedroso continued.
“The reality is that Antony, since arriving at Betis, has become one of the best players in the team and in the competition itself, demonstrating his full potential when given the right conditions to develop his game. This makes it clear that the problem was not his physicality but rather the context and the way he was coached in Manchester.
“Many players who do not thrive at United find success at other clubs, which leads us to question whether the problem really lies with the players.”
The coaching, or the pressure of playing for one of the world’s biggest Teams?
And before Amorim? How many games did he get under ETH? What was the problem then?
Football players and their agents are always delusional. One-trick pony.
I totally agree with Antony’s agents sentiments. The player did not start on a clean slate under the Portuguese and this was reflected in the minutes he got. He did very well coming on as a wing back , two games in a row, Paok and City, combining very well indeed with the winger Amad.
However this made no difference to his status under Amorim as he got little game time when the first eleven were underwhelming. This is quite perplexing as the coaches fellow Portugal native Dalot has been an ever present in a weak and losing team while producing very uninspiring performances as a wide player.
To summarize , Ruben Amorim is having to resort to making feeble excuses for allowing a potential game changer in Antony to depart despite having no back up plan in the event of an injury to Amad.
Most disappointing judgement from the coach and certainly does not inspire confidence in future decisions by him. Now we have to endure dull boring so called controlling football. Amorim is taking individual brilliance out of man Utd.