When Manchester United agreed to pay €100 million for Antony dos Santos, a lot of eyebrows were raised. At that point in his career, he had 25 goals and 26 assists, nowhere near the numbers that deserve such a price tag. There is the potential of course, but the risk is high, as it has been seen in many of the transfers of such type.
Manchester United have also had many transfers of high fees that have almost always ended a failure, like Pogba and Lukaku. Surely they would have been much more cautious with their spending right? So then why did they pay such a high fee for him?
The only reason was that he understood Erik Ten Hag's tactics perfectly and knows how to implement them. And that is vital for Ten Hag in the early stages of his rebuild, having someone among the players who can show them what he wants them to do.
While many pundits and fans, in general, have questioned a lot of his performances, the more you watch United, the more you realise how vital he is to them.
There are two aspects to it. In an attacking sense, him being left-footed allows him to cut in and cross and/or shoot from a very good angle. It also allows Dalot to overlap and adds numbers centrally, which helps if the ball is turned over.
Defensively, his pressing and back-tracking are exactly how Ten Hag wants it. His defensive work rate is extremely high, perhaps only outworked by Bruno among the attackers. You will not notice it unless you regularly watch United but when he isn't on the field, United's press becomes much weaker, they have very few attacks coming from the right side in the final third and the right side is almost exclusively defended by the right back.
Because Sancho is ready yet, Antony usually comes off for Fred and Bruno moves to his position on the right. When this happens, Bruno operates just outside the final third and goes central if he has to get into it. While Bruno does great defensive work too, he does so more centrally.
What this also does is make United predictable. With Antony gone, Rashford becomes the only outlet on the wings when in transition, and in possession, the opposition only has to deal with an overlapping right back, with anyone else being tracked by their man. Essentially, without Antony on the field, United are extremely predictable in attack and ends up having to defend more and more.
All this points towards Antony being essential to Ten Hag's system. But yes, at this point, because the system isn't completed and he doesn't have much control over the ball using his right foot, Antony is struggling while attacking. Defenders realise his inability to use his right foot and know precisely what he is going to do. While he might be very good at cutting in, it is defendable.
However, when playing against weaker opposition, so to speak, United attempt to use more of Ten Hag's possession system and Antony comes to life in the attack. It gives us an indication that the more United adopt Ten Hag's tactics, the better Antony will get.
His game against Forest in the first leg of the Carabao Cup Semi-Final was perhaps his best performance in Red colours, and it came in a game where United used Ten Hag's possession system better than they ever had.
Antony is like a perfected part of a car that is still being perfected. In such circumstances, sometimes the part works well, and sometimes it doesn't. The better the car becomes, the more useful the part becomes. As fans, we need to have patience and wait.
Players like Antony have been around for quite a while. Jorginho under Sarri is a prime example. A perfected Regista in a properly built system at Napoli. Yet, once he came to Chelsea, he became ineffective when marked and pressed well, leading to the breakdown of the system. All because the Chelsea car was not perfected yet. He then went on to do really well under other managers, like Tuchel and Mancini. Such is the world of football.
As fans, we hope of course that Antony can quickly start doing much more and much better. But, we need to be patient and wait for the flower to truly bloom.
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