Gary Neville has named Antony as Manchester United’s worst signing since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, placing the winger below Angel Di Maria in a blunt verdict on the club’s post-Ferguson recruitment. Neville said Di Maria had been his first choice for the unwanted distinction before settling on Antony.
That matters because Neville did not arrive there by accident. Di Maria joined Manchester United from Real Madrid in 2014 for just under £60 million, lasted one season, scored four goals in 32 appearances and moved on to Paris Saint-Germain. Neville said he was “so excited” by Di Maria at the time and called him an amazing signing, but later judged him a bad one because he did not adapt or settle.
He still stopped short of putting Di Maria at the bottom. Neville rejected Marouane Fellaini because, in his view, he gave everything while at the club and did not cost the same kind of money. Antony did. Manchester United paid £82 million for him, and Neville said that level of outlay, followed by panic, made the deal the worst of the lot. Antony has scored 12 times in 96 appearances, a return that only hardens the criticism.
The comparison is what gives the verdict its force. Neville’s complaint was not simply that Antony has underperformed, but that the fee turned the signing into a symbol of bad judgement. He said Di Maria was poor because he failed to settle, yet Antony became the top choice because the club paid that money for him after panicking. That is the line Neville drew between a bad signing and a worse one.
He did offer one major exception to the wider story. Neville identified Bruno Fernandes as the standout success among Manchester United’s post-2013 arrivals and said Fernandes is worth more now than when the club bought him. He was also more encouraged by the 2025 arrivals, saying Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Senne Lammens have settled, while Benjamin Sesko could still do the same.
What Neville’s verdict leaves open is not whether Manchester United have missed badly since 2013, but how many more transfers can still be judged against the same standard. He has already set Antony at the bottom and Di Maria just above him; the next test is whether the newer signings can become the kind of exceptions he has so far found too rare.
