Following last week’s humiliating 6-3 derby defeat to Manchester City, new Manchester United recruit Antony was accused of overlooking his defensive duties.
According to reports, the £86m forward was said to have ignored instructions at the Etihad, specifically in terms of contributing to the team without the ball. The Brazilian has worked with Erik ten Hag previously at Ajax, yet despite this existing relationship, it was said he ignored pre-match orders from his manager to help right-back Diogo Dalot defensively.
Although Antony grabbed himself a goal with a stunning strike when United already trailed 4-0 in the heavy loss, his teammate Dalot endured an incredibly tough afternoon and was tormented by the likes of Jack Grealish and Bernardo Silva.
It was a different story in Sunday’s 2-1 victory away at Everton where the 22-year-old put in his best display since joining the club and became the first United player to score in their first three Premier League appearances.
The hosts took the lead early on through an excellent Alex Iwobi strike, yet United remained calm and composed, quickly taking control of proceedings and applying lots of pressure on Frank Lampard’s side.
That pressure paid off just after 15 minutes when the Red Devils equalised through Antony before Cristiano Ronaldo came off the bench to replace the injured Anthony Martial and score his 700th career goal just before half-time.
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It was a deserved win for United and made it five victories from their last six Premier League matches. As a result of his performance, Antony was unsurprisingly the subject of plenty of post-match discussions, and Ten Hag spoke glowingly of his improvements, particularly on the defensive side of things, following the win.
"We have to expect more from him, he needs challenges, that's why he came to the Premier League, he gets it here. He wants to play with the best players, the highest stress factors against the best players and from there on he will step up.
"That's what you see: first weeks, he scored goals, he did good stuff, but also I saw a lot of room for improvement in his game, and what I was happy with the goal he made now was out of the moment of getting in behind. He has to do that more, he has to use his space, he has a good dribble, but he needs more variation,” Ten Hag explained.
"In the first game, he was not always that good defending-wise but today he was really good, really disciplined. He had good positioning, good anticipation, so he had quite an impact on this team's performance.”
Ten Hag also confirmed he thinks Antony still has room for improvement from an attacking point of view too, particularly when it comes to using his right foot on a more regular basis. According to Fbref, Antony uses his left foot for 89 per cent of his actions in play, but the United manager believes with more development he can add greater variety to his game in the final third.
"He can (go on the outside more), it's preferred and he had to go both ways, you have to work on that point and we already did in Amsterdam with him, working on that and he can also cross with his right foot. But he is a young player we have to develop but he has to develop himself."
