Ruben Amorim was discussing a forward he doesn’t pick. He would, he said on Sunday, be willing to put his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach on the bench ahead of him if he didn’t give the maximum in training. It wasn’t Antony he was talking about: Marcus Rashford was the man damned by comparison with Jorge Vital. (Although a spot on the bench has already opened up.) The temptation is to suggest the veteran Vital would be of similar use to Antony as a substitute.
It was one illustration of the crushing failure of the second most expensive signing in United’s history that, out of sight, already out of mind, he went unmentioned at Craven Cottage on Sunday. Antony had already become part afterthought, part joke. The initial sense was that United had done well to get Real Betis to pay 84 per cent of his wages to borrow him for the rest of the season; but no loan fee, no return on his ridiculous £85m transfer fee. The likelihood may be that Antony leaves on a free transfer, perhaps when his contract ends in 2027, maybe after being loaned out again. Few have any reason to buy him when they have proof United will let him leave without bringing any money in.
