Antony endured a less than successful three-year stint with Manchester United before joining Real Betis on a permanent deal this summer, and he has been told what Ruben Amorim and Red Devils fans truly think of him.
Antony has been told that “no one cared if he played or not” at Manchester United. The Brazil winger endured a lacklustre three-year stint with the Red Devils between 2022 and 2025, albeit the last half-year of his tenure was spent on loan at Real Betis.
Despite being unable to hit the ground running at Old Trafford, the 25-year-old ultimately thrived on Spanish soil at the back end of 2024/25, racking up nine goals and five assists across all competitions for the club. As a result of his fine form, Betis opted to make his transfer permanent this summer, securing Antony on a fee of around £21.5million.
This season so far, Antony has managed another six goals and three assists for his new club, in 13 appearances across La Liga and the Europa League. And while he has enjoyed a career turnaround at the Estadio Benito Villamarin, a Spanish football expert has now explained where he believes it all went wrong at United for Antony.
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Speaking exclusively to Mirror Football, Terry Gibson explained: “I think a bit of suitability to the league. And I think the minute he stepped off the plane at Betis to join them on loan and was adored, welcomed by the supporters, by [Manuel] Pellegrini, by the players.
“It was an obvious case of a player who was down in the dumps at Man Utd, wasn’t popular with the fan-base. No one cared if he played or not, if they were a Man Utd fan.
“Most of them preferred he didn’t play. The manager didn’t have any faith in him. So when he gets off the plane at Betis and there’s a whole host of supporters there waiting to greet him, and the manager picked him and told him how important he was, I just think his self-esteem was back.
“And he can play. It can be a bit of a joke; ‘Oh, Anthony, the league can’t be very good if he’s scoring goals, blah, blah, blah’. But he’s a really good player. He’s the second most popular player at Betis, though he’s never going to overtake Isco.”
Gibson had the pleasure of watching Real Betis in the flesh this weekend, on co-commentary duty for Premier Sport 1 as the club ran out 2-0 winners over Sevilla. Pablo Fornals opened the scoring for the club in the second-half, before Sergi Altimira sealed the deal with around 20 minutes left to play.
However, Antony was not included in Pellegrini’s squad for the derby, as a result of sustaining a red card against Girona on November 23. In that incident, Antony attempted a late overhead kick, missing the ball completely and accidentally kicking Joel Roca in the head.
While he was initially only shown a yellow card for it, the referee upgraded it to a straight red after a VAR review. As a result, he missed the all-Seville showdown weekend.
It comes as Gibson also highlighted potential problems with Marcus Rashford securing a permanent switch to Barcelona next summer. The 28-year-old is currently enjoying a season-long loan under Hansi Flick at Barcelona, after falling out of favour under Ruben Amorim.
And with the Catalan giants holding an option to make the move permanent come season’s end, Rashford’s future could be set at the Camp Nou. However, Gibson has highlighted that Barca might struggle to raise the funds, given their struggles in that area.
He said: “It’s not as easy to find £30m for Barcelona as it is normally. But back in the new stadium now, charging a fortune for tickets at the moment, 45,000 at the weekend, it’s going to keep creeping up.
“And then Barcelona, before too long, will be back on a familiar financial footing. And they’ll be setting their sights very high to bring back in superstars at Barcelona.”
Rashford will hope to make an impact in Barcelona’s clash with Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night, after appearing as a second-half substitute against Alaves this weekend. Barca currently top the La Liga table, just three points ahead of Diego Simeone’s side at present – and they will hope to expand that gap when the two teams meet at the Camp Nou.
FC Barcelona vs Atletico de Madrid is available for fans in the UK to watch live on Premier Sports 1, from 7.55pm on Tuesday night.
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