Former Man Utd head coach Erik ten Hag insists Antony only ended up at Old Trafford because Jadon Sancho refused to play as a right winger.

The Red Devils spent £73m on signing Sancho in July 2021 in one of the biggest transfer flops in the club’s history.

Signing Antony from Ajax for £85m in August 2022 was another of Man Utd‘s worst buys and ex-Red Devils boss Ten Hag has revealed how Sancho pushed him to sign the Brazil international.

The signing of Antony was often used as a stick to beat Ten Hag with but the Dutchman has now explained that Man Utd may not have signed the Brazilian if Sancho had accepted a role on the right-hand side of his attack.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview in The Athletic, Ten Hag revealed: “There came up a problem because Sancho didn’t want to play on the right side; he said that. Which was very weird; he played often on the right. He said he felt more comfortable on the left. So there we had an issue, and we were late.”

Man Utd signed several ex-Ajax or Eredivisie players during Ten Hag’s time at Old Trafford but the Dutchman has insisted the background of the player didn’t impact his selection.

Ten Hag added: “I see on performances and profiles what is needed for the game. Not on emotion, if I like a player or dislike a player, or if I trained him before, or if I bought him or the club bought him, no, I can be acting very professional, I would say.”

On handling another young player in Alejandro Garnacho, who has since moved on to Chelsea, Ten Hag continued: “He’s a character, you have to manage him, but I had a strong connection with him. But it’s also up to him, of course, but he needs a coach, a particular coach, who will give him trust, who will give him love. He needs the love, definitely. But he’s an amazing player. What’s so special about him is he can run all day, high volume at really high speed, all game, back and forward.

“Sometimes his head is not on defending. So mentally, his mindset, you have to make sure he is focused and disciplined and does the job every transition, but he’s capable of doing it and attacking-wise he can go forward and do incredible things, making dribbles, finishing. He can do the final pass, but sometimes he’s a little bit selfish.

“But yeah, you balance this.”

How Ten Hag selects the players he wants to buy

On his ‘points’ that any player needs to hit for him to suggest the target to a club’s recruitment team, the ex-Man Utd boss told The Athletic: “Seven points where I judge the player. Technical ability, for me, is most important. Second is game intelligence and cognition. Third, you need athleticism, then lifestyle. Determination. Resilience and robustness to play every third day. And then we want to be always offensive.

“For instance, when I came to United, we didn’t have the scoring ability to be in the top four. I will not say football is mathematics, but a bit of logic is in it. For us at Twente, we need 70 goals if you want to be in fourth position. When you want to win the Premier League, you need 85, 90 goals.

“I use this every day, so it should not be a document in a drawer. That is winning culture, if we match what we described. We use a lot of data to see new signings match our style of play.”

He added: “Data changed the whole world, and now it’s coming, AI, and every organisation has to take this on board. I think United miss some aspects. The moment I came in, they were starting. For instance, data was already a long time on board at Ajax.”