Rashford, Sancho and McTominay in San Diego during pre-season
Rashford, Sancho and McTominay in San Diego during pre-season
It rather typifies Manchester United that they have had their best week of the season without playing.
Liverpool are out of the FA Cup. City are all but out of the Champions League. The youth team trounced Chelsea with a result that highlighted United do possess a natural goalscorer in Chido Obi. Liverpool also imploded at Goodison Park.
United fans will have revelled in the schadenfreude after Jude Bellingham tapped in on Tuesday night and 24 hours later when James Tarkowski's Roy-of-the-Rovers volley thudded against the Gwladys Street net. Galatasaray, dreaded potential opposition in the Europa League last 16, were whipped by AZ Alkmaar, too.
Antony also continues to pull the wool over potential suitors’ eyes. He has got two goals in two games for Real Betis. Some will use that as a stick to beat United with. The reality is Antony has found his level with a mid-table Spanish side in sunny Seville. His latest goal came in the Europa Conference League.
Joe Hart's presence on the BBC is a reminder that punditry does not have to be about scripted soundbites to chase viral clips. It is worth imparting that advice to some of Hart's peers.
Scott McTominay is "playing like primetime Jude Bellingham", according to the 47-year-old Rio Ferdinand. Ferdinand did not talk like this when he captained United impeccably at the age of 29 but there is a fixation among some pundits to appeal to the TikTok crowd.
McTominay has scored seven goals for Napoli. This time last year, he had tallied nine goals for United. Has he gone backwards? No, of course not. But it fits the narrative to frame it as a blunder by United to have sold him.
Four of McTominay's United goals last season came off the bench. He was an undeniable game-changer and, if used properly, was an asset as a starter. Erik ten Hag eventually realised McTominay's calling was as an attacking midfielder.
Yet he was open to selling McTominay the summer before he left. A manager is entitled to change his mind and Ten Hag did. He wanted to keep McTominay but the financial realities were that United had to sell-to-buy and a specialist defensive midfielder was essential. McTominay was the outgoing and Manuel Ugarte the incoming.
Bellingham and McTominay are poles apart
Casemiro was unsellable, so McTominay was the one who was always going to make way. If the words profitability and sustainability had not entered the English football lexicon, McTominay might still have been moved on.
United miss McTominay's goal-getting nous and he has as many goals as Rasmus Hojlund this season. He would have been worth trialling as a striker last year.
All Antony thriving at Betis and McTominay distinguishing himself in Naples highlights is United's horrendous hit-rate in the transfer market. Antony should never have been signed and, had United not squandered hundreds of millions on duds, they would not have had to sell a homegrown asset in McTominay.
Antony is thriving at a club where there is no pressure
Let us not pretend clubs were queuing around the block for McTominay, though. He joined a team that finished tenth in Serie A last season and Antonio Conte has a particular penchant for signing United cast-offs (Romelu Lukaku, Matteo Darmian, Alexis Sanchez, Ashley Young). The only interested Premier League club was Fulham, 13th last season.
"You look at Antony, he's got a man of the match performance and a goal and assist in two games," Ferdinand sighed. "McTominay is playing like primetime Jude Bellingham at the moment. You've got Elanga, who's a flying winger."
Elanga, like McTominay, is another credit to the United academy but let's not rewrite history. The widespread consensus 18 months ago was that Elanga had to be sold. He left United in July 2023 and last scored for the club in February 2022.
Elanga was back at Old Trafford in December
It is not as challenging to make waves by the Trent as it is by the River Irwell. The fee for Elanga could rise to £20m and is dependent on Nottingham Forest qualifying for Europe.
Again, the issue is with recruitment. How did United let another left winger, Anthony Martial, outstay his welcome and come within a year of securing a testimonial? Why did they not do ample due diligence on Jadon Sancho, who saw Forest as a possible escape route when he was banished by Ten Hag? Did they check the company that Marcus Rashford keeps?
Chelsea are obliged to sign Sancho, struggling to cut the mustard back in London. Elanga was not good enough to be a starter in a successful United team, their attack was lopsided and his sale represented a PSR profit. Good luck to him.
Ferdinand was half-right: "You've got all these players that are leaving the club that are looking like new, dynamic footballers because the shackles are off, and the cloud and the pressure of Old Trafford, the badge, all that that brings, is allowing them to go 'you know what, wow, what a difference that is'."
Sancho couldn't hack it at United
Antony was not shackled. He was just too one-paced and one-dimensional with one trick. United need him to score and create for the 11th-placed side in La Liga as there is a magic number to hit for his intended sale in the summer: £32.52million.
That is nearly €40m and will be too steep for Betis, once upon a time responsible for the world record fee for Denilson at £21.5m in 1998. Perhaps Ten Hag will be in post elsewhere and eager to reunite with Antony.
He can have Tyrell Malacia, too. Even if Malacia scores a hat-trick in every appearance on loan for PSV Eindhoven then, great. He is back where he belongs in the Eredivisie and he played for more than 70 minutes for the first time since June 2023 last week.
It's been a good week for him. And for United.