Gary Neville has said in no uncertain terms he would have ‘whacked’ Antony for absurd attempt to demonstrate his ridiculously ‘pointless’ piece of skill during Manchester United’s victory over Arsenal on Sunday afternoon.
While Erik Ten Hag’s new signing did commendably open the scoring for the Red Devils in the 35th minute of their well-deserved 3-1 victory over the Gunners, fans and pundits alike couldn’t help but remain highly skeptical and roasted the 22-year-old for his trashy, ludicrous footwork early on in the first half.
The new signee was right in front of Oleksandr Zinchenko and suddenly decided to confuse the Ukrainian defender with some fancy footwork and raised his left leg and twirled it repeatedly a few times in the air, which, truth be told, made him look absolutely like a dingbat and a nit-witted show-off. Not that the showboating worked at all as it appeared to have zero impact as he subsequently decided to play the ball backwards.
Fans and pundits were quick to pounce on the incident and post negative comments. Neville said he would have ‘whacked’ Antony, while Jamie Carragher said he would have ‘put him in the stand’.
Neville said: “To be honest with you, when you see a player doing that your automatic reaction as a defender…” before being interrupted by Carragher who said: “Put him in the stand.”
Neville promptly agreed by saying: “Yeah, you are going to get whacked. But from a United point of view, we have been asking for personality, confidence and character. So we can’t knock it because we have got someone out there who is having himself, massively.”
Fans were equally as unimpressed with the 22-year-old’s bizarre skill. One supporter wrote: “All I see is a finished player trying to do some Martinelli moves, and failed miserably.’
Another fan added sarcastically: “Zinchenko was shaking …” while one supporter wrote: “Premier League defenders will humble him.”
Others highlighted the lack of impact Antony had in the clip by saying: “He dribbled past 0 players and made no progression into opposition box.”
Another added: “So he did 2 balls rolls, shook his leg a bit then passed the ball backwards. So literally did nothing with it.”
Another one wrote: “While your team mates are awaiting for a decent cross you are rather engaging in this unnecessary flip overs for them to recover.
“They won so no problem , but when he continues to this n they loose the same fans will tear him apart.”
Understandably, there were some who jumped to the defence of Antony, with one saying: “I remember Ronaldo doing stuff like this and people said he wasn’t going anywhere and teams will better him. He got battered for a year and has been destroying teams ever since.”