'Antony has proven something at Man Utd - and sent a warning to club's transfer targets'

Manchester United flop Antony has proven that the Premier League is the best league in the world with his loan move to La Liga, says Clinton Morrison.

Despite his impressive stint at Ajax under Erik ten Hag, Antony struggled to leave a mark in the Premier League after his whopping £86million move.

His underwhelming performances yielded only 12 goals and five assists in nearly 100 games for the Red Devils, leading new manager Ruben Amorim to ship him off on loan to Real Betis, where he's begun to find his feet.

Ex-Premier League ace Morrison believes Antony's challenges and subsequent resurgence are indicative of just how challenging the English top flight is and how difficult it is to adapt to - serving as a warning for any other players targeted by the Red Devils from abroad.

"A player like Antony, he came in – nowhere near good enough," Morrison said to Freebets.com. "I know he's gone to Real Betis and doing ever so well in Real Betis. So, that just goes to show me the Premier League is the best league in world football. It's the hardest one to adjust to."

Despite a controversial red card marring his last appearance in La Liga, Antony has kicked off his Spanish journey with an impressive two goals and two assists in just four games. Morrison argues that this not only highlights the challenge of excelling in the Premier League compared to other leagues but, also underscores the poor recruitment strategy at Old Trafford.

"Recruitment has to be better," he insisted. "I'm not in that football club. So, I don't know what goes on in that football club. But I do think that recruitment has been nowhere near good enough at Man United. And that is why they're struggling.

"It just doesn't look good where they are in the league. We're talking about Man United Football Club, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, team in world football.

"It's going to take two or three transfer windows until Ruben Amorim can get the players, and people can buy into how he wants to play. So it's going to be a struggle for Man United fans. And I think they accept that."

With United currently languishing in 15th place in the Premier League, Morrison also worries that part of the issue is the squad's lack of fit with Amorim's tactics – stressing that any new signings must be a match for the demands of the world's best league, reports the Manchester Evening News.

"Coming in and changing his style so quickly, the players that haven't adjusted," Morrison concluded. "He loves his 3-4-3 – which some of the players I'm looking at can't play. They don't have wing-backs that can go and do the job that his wing-backs were doing at Sporting Lisbon.

"They don't have the two centre midfielders that can cover the ground, and they don't have a centre forward like Viktor Gyokeres and what he was doing at Sporting Lisbon. There's a whole lot of things."

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