Antony must fulfil Erik ten Hag objective to help solve Manchester United problem

“The craziest thing for me is that he’s coming in on his strongest foot. He’s done it a few times and he’s not hit the target once. Come on! Make the goalkeeper work.”

Andy Cole was underwhelmed by Antony’s outing against Real Madrid in Thursday’s 2-0 defeat. The Brazilian came on with 28 minutes remaining and was bright if not efficient.

The skilful winger loves to cut inside and fans saw how devastating his left foot can be on his debut against Arsenal and in the derby loss at the Etihad, not to mention his winning strike against Barcelona. But he hasn't found the goalscoring consistency. After netting in his first three Premier League games, he went six months before scoring in the competition again.

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He ended the season with eight goals and three assists - an okay return but not £85m standard. United insist the fee paid on last year’s deadline day is for the winger he will become, not the one he is today.

Antony will turn 24 next February and the safety net of being branded as a young player will start to fade. Only a third of the ex-Ajax star’s league shots were on target. That tells the tale of the tape.

The Reds player with the best ratio out of those who had mustered 10 shots or more during the campaign was Anthony Martial, whose efforts were on target 46 per cent of the time. However, the Frenchman missed 32 matches last season due to injury.

Without Marcus Rashford’s career-best 30-goal campaign, United would have been in the mire. Only Bruno Fernandes managed to hit double figures otherwise (14).

The lack of potency