Antony: A Confounding Player
An analysis of Antony's profile and why he is almost the complete opposite of most young, raw wingers
Spending £85 million on anything is quite the investment. In football as in life, spending such a vast sum would normally come with some confidence that what you’re purchasing is the finished product.
When Manchester United shelled out £85 million on Antony, a 22-year-old right winger then playing for Ajax, they would have known that despite the large fee, the player that would be gracing the Old Trafford pitch was still developing. Far from the finished product, Antony is a player who can be generally described as “raw”. A player with obvious talent who sparkles in short bursts, but whose all-round game still needs refinement and development to become a top class winger. Such rawness seems obvious when you consider that Antony is still in his early twenties, having had just two seasons at Ajax playing in the Eredivisie (a good-not-great level of competition) before moving to United.
And yet, for all that seems obvious about Antony, much about his game does not mach the usual profile of young, raw wingers. For here is a player whose general development path has been well-trodden, but whose specific strengths and weaknesses can leave spectators puzzled. To unravel this mercurial, oft frustrating player, let’s dive into the data on his performances. What are Antony’s attributes? How does he differ from the typical profile of a young, raw winger? What can this tell us about his future?
Start to Life at Old Trafford
After scoring in his first three league games for United, Antony’s general play in those early performances was somewhat put to one side. Just as United fans did after his goal against Arsenal on debut, coverage of his early performances got swept up in the euphoria of good moments and good results. If there had been more extensive coverage of his overall performance, it would have found a relatively underwhelming output. In that first game against Arsenal, Antony’s stats read:
27 touches
67% pass completion
0/2 dribbles completed
1 progressive pass
3 shots (2 on target)
1 goal
It’s worth remembering that this was a game when United as a whole struggled in possession as they played on the counter attack, but Antony’s stats on debut don’t exactly blow you away. That isn’t to say his debut was bad; any debut that includes a goal against a main rival is a success! But it is to say that those early games were perhaps not scrutinised as much as they ought to have been. Antony’s room for development only became clearer in the months leading up to the 2022 World Cup once the goals stopped coming as frequently.
What have we learnt about Antony since those early days at United, then?
Antony’s Profile
Antony is someone I would describe as a “spiky” player, meaning that he has shown that he has very clear strengths and weaknesses rather than an evenly strong game across the board. The radar chart below shows Antony’s percentile rank compared against other wingers in the Premier League this season.
The radar chart clearly shows Antony’s “spiky” nature. His strongest attributes (shooting and possession, which includes metrics like touches in attacking penalty area, passes received, progressive passes received) are very strong, placing him comfortably in the top third of all wingers this season. His weaker attributes, like dribbling and goal & shot creation, are very weak. He is in the bottom quarter of all Premier League winners for dribbling and the bottom 40% for both passing and goal & shot creation.
It is not uncommon to see young players, especially attackers, with “spiky” profiles. In most cases, talented players excel at one or two things but have to improve the weaker parts of their game to become a more rounded player. What is uncommon, though, is the mix of strengths and weaknesses that Antony possesses.
Comparing Antony to Other Young Wingers
To illustrate the point, here are a series of radar charts with Antony’s profile in red against other young Premier League wingers in blue. Where necessary, I have used other players’ stats from previous seasons in order to match up their age and Premier League experience to Antony as best as possible. In all cases, the players in question were the same age or younger than Antony during the relevant season.
For the sake of this piece, I am not particularly interested in comparing the overall quality of each player. What I am interested in is the relative strength of each player’s attributes. When looking at this sample of young wingers, Antony’s status as an outlier becomes clearer. On the whole, this group excel at dribbling (the left hand side of the chart) and, to a slightly lesser extent, goal & shot creation (the bottom right section). For five out of the eight players, dribbling is their strongest skill-set measured in percentile terms, while Saka and Kulusevski (whose strongest attribute is not dribbling) are still in the top half of all Premier League wingers. Antony, though, struggles mightily when it comes to dribbling; it is comfortably his weakest attribute and places him in the bottom quarter of all wingers in the league.
It’s a similar story with goal & shot creation. While it is no player’s strongest skill, every player in this sample except Antony is again in the top half of all Premier League wingers. Antony is relatively weak in this category, coming in at the 38th percentile. Along with a low percentile rank for passing (37th, the lowest of this sample of players) Antony’s weak attributes can roughly be summed up as being on-ball aspects of the game. When it comes to dribbling, passing, and creating chances for teammates, he struggles compared with his peers.
What Does He Do Well?
However, this isn’t all meant to be doom and gloom for the young Brazilian. His strongest skill is “possession” - this is a group of metrics comprising of touches, passes and progressive passes received, and dispossessions. It can broadly be thought of as a metric of involvement in general play. This is an area where Antony, unusually for a player of his age and position, excels; it is his strongest group of attributes, placing him in the 71st percentile in the Premier League.
Of the wingers mentioned above, no other player’s strongest attribute is this group of possession metrics. In fact, it is not even in the top two strongest skillsets of any of those players. It’s clear that relative to the rest of his game, Antony is very good in terms of involvement in build up. His “spiky” profile is not unique by any means; many of the radar charts above show players that have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses rather than very well-rounded profiles. What makes Antony different, though, is that specific strengths and weaknesses are almost completely opposite to other young wingers.
Antony’s strong profile in terms of involvement can be shown by other data points, too. Smarterscout’s Link-Up Passing provides a score out of 100 denoting the amount of short passes a player makes that keeps play moving. Anthony scores 81 out of 100 in this metric, second among Man United attackers (behind Jadon Sancho) and in the top 8 Premier League wingers overall. He is also involved in over half of all United attacks that lead to a shot, a stat that he also graded well in during his time at Ajax.
Still here, though, there is a slight problem. For all of the good work that is captured by the strong link-up play, it also shows a weakness. Crucially, passes contributing to link-up play are passes that do not progress the ball more than 10 yards towards the opposition goal. This partly explains Antony’s poor performance when it comes to passing and goal & shot creation: he is secure in possession and involved plenty, but his direct contribution to pushing United forward is more limited. Indeed, Antony scores just 23 out of 100 on Smarterscout’s attacking output scale, highlighting his lack of end product despite the high involvement. His full Smarterscout profile can be seen in the image below.
So what do these stats tell us about Antony’s profile? In broad terms, it tells us that Antony is far better off the ball than he is on it. For his involvement to be so high, it follows that he is getting himself into useful positions from which he can receive the ball. This ability off the ball is also shown up in Antony’s defensive work. According to Smarterscout’s Defensive Quantity score, which measures the defending events per minute out of possession, Antony scores a huge 87 out of 100. This puts him in the top 5 among wingers in the Premier League. From his very first game at United, he has shown a clear understanding of Ten Hag’s demands for pressing, another sign of his strength out of possession.
A Recent Example
The eye-test backs up this understanding of Antony as strong off the ball but relatively weak with the ball at his feet. Frequently in United games, Antony can be seen finding himself in excellent positions to receive the ball, only to squander the opportunity. Here’s an example.
After 34 minutes against Everton in the FA Cup, United win the ball back on the edge of their own box. Antony, who had been keeping tabs on Demarai Gray, immediately spots the opportunity in transition. Before the ball has even broken to Marcus Rashford, he makes a forward run in to a huge space in front of him.
So far, so good. Antony’s great instincts off the ball have put him in position to receive the ball from Rashford in a dangerous transition for United. The next image is when he receives the pass. Antony is just ahead of Amadou Onana with Rashford and Anthony Martial for support. Connor Coady and James Tarkowski are in Everton’s defensive line.
Antony is in a wonderful position when he receives the ball. United have a 3v3 with Godfrey out of the game behind Rashford. In this situation, you would expect that Antony will drive forward and try to dribble across the front of Onana and towards Tarkowski. If he does so, the worst case scenario is that Onana is close enough to foul him and likely receives a yellow card. If Onana doesn’t do so, Antony can commit Tarkowski, leaving Martial and Rashford with a 2v1 against Coady. There is a clear path here to a great goalscoring opportunity for United. The next image is how the attack plays out.
Instead of dribbling inside and across Onana, Antony’s next touch is slightly to the right. While there is space there, the angle of the touch allows Onana to easily come across and block Antony’s path forward. Tarkowski and Coady can cover Martial, while Rashford is no longer an option. In the end, Antony turns back and plays a short pass to Casemiro who then gives the ball away. This is a great example of Antony’s opposing strengths and weaknesses to most young wingers. His intelligence and positional understanding off-the-ball puts him in good positions time and time again. Not only in transition but also in the opposition box, his movement and understanding of space is excellent. . This is a trait that many young players struggle with as they adapt to the additional tactical demands of top level football.
Once in those positions though, most young wingers are in their element dribbling with the ball and beating defenders. For Antony this season, it is a part of the game with which he’s struggled. The contrast to 18-year-old teammate Alejandro Garnacho, who has constantly displayed his ability to go past defenders at-will, has been quite the eye-opener for Antony’s opposing strengths to most young wide players.
Where Does Antony Go From Here?
Antony, quite simply, is a confounding player. As a young winger coming to the Premier League in a big money move, most would have been expecting a player whose profile matched that of other similar players that have come before. Highlights from his time at Ajax certainly seemed to confirm that idea - replays abound of his skillful dribbling, skipping past player after player, and using his dominant left foot to cut inside for crosses and shots. In the Premier League, this has not translated. So far, he has shown a very unique profile, one of a player whose strengths lie in off-the-ball aspects of the game but struggles on the ball.
Does this mean that Antony is always likely to be an opposing profile to others? Not necessarily. Playing for Erik Ten Hag’s Ajax, he showed the ability to be an impactful player in possession, one whose game was more similar to those I compared him to earlier. His goal & shot creation and dribbling, two areas that have suffered this season, were both very strong in the Eredivisie. The ability is clearly there, but has not been easily translated. Perhaps that is because Ten Hag’s United are a far less dominant side than Ten Hag’s Ajax, leading to less favourable circumstances for Antony. Perhaps it is the old adage of the Premier League being faster and affording players less time and space. Antony’s output in the Champions League for Ajax kept pace with his league performances, suggesting that a step-up in competition to the Premier League cannot be the sole reason.
Whatever the reason, there is clearly evidence to show why United paid £85 million for the Brazilian. The challenge now is to get the best out of Antony more consistently, combining his off-ball intelligence with better on-ball output. Improving his output in possession should, in theory, be an easier task than if his development demanded huge tactical improvements since it is less dependent on other players or the team’s structure.
Until then, as a player who gets himself in good positions but doesn’t take advantage of them as often as he should, he is likely to remain a frustrating figure. Such is the life of a player whose profile we have rarely seen and who flips the script on our ideas of the young, raw winger who needs to round out his game.