Former Manchester United winger Ian Storey-Moore has ripped into Antony and Jadon Sancho amid Erik ten Hag’s early-season attacking woes. Neither big-money transfer is working out, contributing to United’s toothless firepower a decade after Ryan Giggs running down the wing was the norm.
Sancho arrived in a £73million deal in 2021 but has struggled to string a run of promising games together to justify his price tag.
He looks set to leave in the January transfer window, having been exiled from Ten Hag’s squad over his discipline.
Antony has similarly struggled. Ten Hag pushed for his arrival last summer, making him the club’s second-most expensive signing for £85m.
The 23-year-old Brazilian is yet to register a single goal or assist in 12 appearances this term, though, following an underwhelming debut campaign.
Storey-Moore, who was a wide player in the same United dressing room as Sir Bobby Charlton and George Best, isn’t a fan of either player.
“I don’t know what he [Antony] brings to the table. He is too predictable. You know what he is going to do as soon as he gets the ball. He’s got no variety in his play,” Storey-Moore told Express Sport.
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“As soon as he gets the ball, you know he’s going to pass it sideways or backwards, Antony. He is not positive enough. Jadon Sancho is the same! As a wide player, you have to be positive.
“Get in the final third, test the full-back, try to go past him outside, inside, test the goalkeeper, make goals, score goals, but they don’t do that, either of them.
“They will do it occasionally but not on a consistent basis; they don’t. They are not positive enough. They have no variety in their play.”
Storey-Moore used Red Devils icon Giggs as a perfect example of what a winger should look like, a far cry from Ten Hag’s current options.
He added: “If you are going to be a wide player at United, you need to have a bit of variety in your play, really, like a Giggsy.
“He was absolutely brilliant, of course. I probably shouldn’t use him as an example because he was a top, top player.”
Switching an icon of the game like Giggs for underwhelming big-money stars like Antony and Sancho epitomises the extent of United’s decline over the past decade.
Sancho’s time to impress at Old Trafford looks up, and it’s certainly running out for the former, too.
The authorised biography of Ian Storey-Moore written by Stuart Humphreys and Richard Harrison, ‘Give It To Moore – He Will Score’, is out now.
