Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was reportedly not in favour of bringing Antony to Old Trafford for £86 million.
The two enjoyed a successful time together in Amsterdam for Ajax and the Brazilian was eventually signed for the mammoth fee in late August 2022.
The Brazilian had an up and down first season at United but struggled immensely in the 2023-2024 season and barely got a look in during the 2024-25 campaign.
As a result, he was loaned out to Real Betis in January, where he took La Liga by storm with numerous impressive performances and goals.
It is thought that Antony is one of a number of high profile sales the club want to make this summer, with him not featuring in current head coach, Ruben Amorim’s plans.
In fact, one of the numerous clubs that have been linked with Antony are Bayer Leverkusen, Ten Hag’s new side.
Interestingly though, the Dutch manager’s agent, Kees Vos, has claimed that Ten Hag was against signing the player for the fee involved.
Speaking to Viaplay about his new book “Liverpool and the Dutch”, Bart Nolles claimed that the former United manager and his agent tried to dissuade United from moving for the player at the price they eventually paid.
Nolles claimed that after speaking to the former United manager’s agent he discovered that, “Ten Hag and Vos were not in favour of this and wanted to stop the transfer. But the club wanted to push through at all costs, because Arsenal was also interested in Antony.”
It is reported that United were so frightened of losing out to their competition that they went ahead and paid the enormous transfer fee despite the warnings of their coach.
He went on, “although Ten Hag did not support this transfer, it stuck with him throughout his entire time in Manchester that he took over the attacker from Ajax for this ill-fated amount, who was never able to fulfil his promise.”
Therefore, with numerous clubs battling for Antony’s signature this summer across various leagues, it will be interesting to see how much effort Ten Hag’s Leverkusen make to capture the Brazilian.
Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
