After his blazing start at Old Trafford, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag anticipates Antony to keep putting on top-notch performances.
With Sunday’s equalising goal against Everton setting the stage for United to go on and secure a crucial 2-1 victory at Goodison Park, the Brazilian made club history by becoming the first player to score in their first three Premier League appearances.
Antony’s goal, a left foot curling effort past Jordan Pickford in his signature style, was a fitting reward for a determined performance that showed great promise. However, Ten Hag promised that the 22-year-old summer signing from Ajax has more to offer after the match. The Dutchman cited the need for improvement in some areas of Antony’s game despite his promising early performances.
“We have to expect more from him,” Ten Hag told reporters. “He needs challenges, that’s why he came to the Premier League and he gets that here. He wants to play with the best players and the highest stress factors and against the best players.
“From there on he will step up and that’s what you see. [In the] First week he was scoring goals and he has done good stuff but I also see a lot of room for improvement in his game.
“What I was happy with is the goal [against Everton] was out of a moment of getting in behind – he has to do that more and use his pace.
Ten Hag continued: “He is a good dribbler but he also has to make more variations and in the first game he was not always that good defending wise. But this time he was really good, he was really disciplined and had good positioning, good anticipation and good pressing and he had quite an impact on this team performance.
“He can go both ways with both feet. He has to work on that point. We already did that in Amsterdam with him, working on that. He can cross with his right foot too but he’s a young player who we have to develop and he has to develop himself too.”
