Antony to Man Utd: 11 'overpriced' players who completely justified huge fees | OneFootball

One of this summer’s longest-running transfer sagas finally looks to be over as Manchester United are set to complete the signing of Brazilian winger Antony from Ajax.

Sky Sports report that the Red Devils will splash out £84 million on the player, making him the second most expensive signing in the club’s history behind the £89m spent on Paul Pogba in 2016.

The considerable fee will also be the biggest ever paid for an Eredivisie player, beating the £77.4m Barcelona forked over to Ajax in July 2019 for Frenkie de Jong.

Antony is not a prolific goalscorer, having only scored 21 goals in 74 outings for the Dutch champions.

On raw numbers alone, United are taking a big gamble on the player, particularly as his market value currently stands at £31.5m.

However, having worked with him at Ajax, United boss Erik ten Hag certainly believes Antony is worth the investment.

Able to unlock defences with his dazzling footwork and direct style of play, Ten Hag feels his new man can be a game changer at Old Trafford and make light of his admittedly steep fee.

Critics of the deal have outright claimed that Antony is overpriced, labelling the fee as ‘ridiculous’.

In fairness, United’s track recent record with big money signings isn’t great. Pogba couldn’t have flopped any harder at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and Harry Maguire is currently a £78.3m benchwarmer.

Plenty of players down the years that have been slapped with the ‘overpriced’ tag have gone on to make their naysayers look foolish, though.

Below we’ve taken a look at 11 such players who went out to completely justify their massive transfer fees. Time will tell if Antony joins them.

Rio Ferdinand – Leeds to Manchester United, 2002 (£30 million)

This was one Red Devils’ gamble that definitely paid off.

Eyebrows were raised when United made Ferdinand the most expensive defender in the history of the game at the age of just 24 years old.

After a rocky start to his Old Trafford career, Ferdinand eventually matured into a United legend, lifting the Champions League as well as six Premier League titles during his 12 years at the club.

Gianluigi Buffon – Parma to Juventus, 2001 (£32.6 million)

This deal stood as the record transfer fee paid for a goalkeeper for some 16 years, which puts into perspective just how crazy it was for its time.

It also ended up being a blinding piece of business for Juve as Buffon went on to cement himself as one one the greatest shot-stoppers ever, helping the Serie A giants to 10 league titles in the process.

Jordan Henderson – Sunderland to Liverpool, 2011 (£20 million)

One of a select group of Englishmen to have lifted the Champions League as a captain, few predicted that Henderson would have anywhere near the level of success he would go on to experience at Anfield when he signed for the club 11 years ago.

£20m was quite the price tag for a 21-year-old midfield prospect from Sunderland. More than 450 appearances later, Henderson has proved the doubters wrong, helping the Reds to win pretty much every major honour available to them.

Kevin De Bruyne – Wolfsburg to Manchester City, 2015 (£55 million)

Man City were famously branded “bonkers” by Sky Sports’ pundits Paul Merson and Phil Thompson for parting with in excess of £50m for the Belgian playmaker who had struggled to establish himself in the Premier League during a brief stint with Chelsea.

“He’s a good player, but is a great player?” Thompson asked live on air seven years ago.

Well, he’s now a four-time Premier League champion and widely considered to be one of the best midfielders in the world, so we reckon that qualifies him as great.

“I don’t see £50-odd million for this player,” insisted Merson.

Today, .

Sadio Mane – Southampton to Liverpool, 2016 (£34 million)

Rival fans couldn’t wait to have a pop at Liverpool when they made Mane the most expensive African player in history in 2016.

“If he’s worth £30m, Jonathan Walters is worth £90m!”

“A poor man’s Jesse Lingard.”

“Another s*** Southampton player. Should cement a top 10 finish no problem.”

By the time he left the club for Bayern Munich back in June, Mane had well and truly silenced his critics.

Scoring 120 times in 269 appearances for the Merseysiders, the Senegalese forward formed a prolific trio with Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino.

Together, they fired Liverpool to both Premier League and Champions League glory.

Following his departure, Jurgen Klopp’s side seem to have been missing his contributions in the early games of the season, too.

Didier Drogba – Marseille to Chelsea, 2004 (£24 million)

“Mr Abramovich, pay – pay and don’t speak,” said Jose Mourinho to then Blues’ owner Roman Abramovich when insisting that he part with a hefty (for the time) £24m for the services of Marseille’s Ivorian striker Drogba.

By the time he left Stamford Bridge as a Chelsea legend eight years later, Drogba had helped deliver four Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups and the Champions League.

Worth every penny!

Jamie Vardy – Fleetwood Town to Leicester City, 2012 (£1.7 million)

In today’s vastly inflated transfer market, £1.7m seems like a fairly insignificant sum.

However, a club splashing out the better part of £2m on a non-league striker would still attract plenty of attention.

Vardy didn’t even have a minute of Football League experience to his name when the Foxes took a sizeable punt on him, but it paid off for them in fine style.

The striker was part of Leicester’s successful 2014 bid for promotion from the Championship, before truly catching fire and helping the club stun the footballing world in 2016 when they won the Premier League title.

He’s only been playing top-flight football for eight years, but Vardy still ranks as one of the greatest goalscorers in the history of the competition, finding the net on 133 occasions.

Diego Maradona – Barcelona to Napoli, 1984 (£5 million)

Back 38 years ago, Napoli’s signing of Argentine icon Maradona was a world record deal.

It came with a fair degree of risk, though. Maradona had struggled for Barca in the previous two seasons and Napoli could barely afford the transfer fee.

What seemed to be a questionable piece of business at first, though, actually turned out to be a perfect fit.

Maradona inspired Napoli to the only Serie A titles in their history.

Following his passing in 2020, the club named their home ground the ‘Diego Armando Maradona Stadium’ in his honour.

Kyle Walker – Tottenham to Manchester City, 2017 (£50 million)

Tottenham believed they had got the better end of the deal when City forked over £50m for the services of England international Walker in 2017.

Granted, it was serious money. However, in the five years since, Walker has gone on to win the Premier on four occasions.

Spurs, meanwhile, have gone trophyless.

Yaya Toure – Barcelona to Manchester City, 2010 (£24 million)

Merson strikes again!

“An average player who’s on £200k a week,” wrote the former Arsenal player in a 2010 column after Toure joined City.

“Does he score goals? No. Does he create them? No. Is he an ok holding midfield player? Yeah!”

The Ivorian didn’t do badly for an ‘average’ player, scooping three Premier League titles and a trio of domestic cups at the Etihad.

Virgil van Dijk – Southampton to Liverpool, 2018 (£75 million)

As we saw earlier when discussing Mane’s move to Anfield, Liverpool have taken plenty of flak for raiding Southampton for talent down the years.

Van Dijk’s switch to Merseyside was no exception.

Former Man United defender Gary Neville was on punditry duty for Sky Sports when he first heard of the size of deal – and was completely stunned.

“It’s a lot of money isn’t it? I haven’t seen a lot of Southampton recently, but I’m not sure he’s even been playing that well?

“Just when you told me when I got in here, I was like ‘wow, £75million’. I wasn’t surprised by the actual transfer, but that is an incredible amount of money.

“What can I say? Liverpool need defenders, they’re obviously having to pay to get him. That’s just the way the market is and I don’t think it’s going to change.”

Neville might not have followed the Dutch centre-back too closely at Southampton, but he’ll be very familiar with him now.

Van Dijk has lifted both Champions League and Premier League honours with Liverpool, as well as also being recognised for his individual accomplishments on numerous occasions.