Antony's Liverpool Bid and Klopp Call Amid Salah's Future Uncertainty
Antony’s Manchester United story has long been framed as a straight line: Ajax, Erik ten Hag, £82 million, Old Trafford. Now the Brazilian has added a twist. He says he could just as easily have been walking out at Anfield in red, not United red, as Mohamed Salah’s potential heir.
The winger, now rebuilt and reborn at Real Betis after a turbulent spell in Manchester, has lifted the lid on the summer of 2022 and the scramble for his signature. Speaking to ESPN Brazil, he claimed Liverpool, led by Jurgen Klopp, had a concrete offer on the table while Salah’s future was still unresolved.
“When I went to Manchester United, I had a proposal from Liverpool, from Klopp, on the table,” Antony said. “It was also very good. Salah was negotiating a departure, but he ended up staying. Then the manager called me. The name of Manchester United carries weight.”
Those few lines drag that transfer window back into sharp focus. Salah was locked in tense contract talks, Liverpool weighing up life without their talisman. Behind the scenes, according to Antony, they were not just monitoring the market, they were acting. He was one of the contingency plans.
At the same time, United were desperate. Ten Hag wanted a familiar face, a winger he trusted to translate his Ajax blueprint to the Premier League. United paid heavily for that comfort: around £82 million to prise Antony out of Amsterdam. The Brazilian chose Old Trafford, not Anfield. Salah stayed put and signed on.
The sliding doors are obvious. Salah remained Liverpool’s attacking axis, adding another Premier League title and stacking up numbers that will live in club folklore. Across 442 appearances, he struck 257 goals in all competitions, dragging Liverpool through title races, Champions League nights and domestic cup runs.
This season told a different story. Just 12 goals in 41 games pointed to a drop in his usual ruthless output, a rare dip from a player who has set a brutal standard for almost a decade. Still, the scale of his contribution since 2022 underlines what Liverpool would have been trying to replace had he walked away back then.
Antony, meanwhile, never truly matched his fee or his billing in Manchester. Flashes of talent, yes. A curled effort here, a sharp combination there. But the consistency, the end product and the authority expected from an £82 million signing never arrived. The pressure grew, the scrutiny hardened, and last summer he left United on a permanent deal.
In Spain, the story is very different. At Betis he has pieced his game back together, putting up 14 goals and 10 assists in 46 appearances across all competitions. Those are not just respectable numbers; they mark one of the best campaigns of his career and a reminder of why Europe’s elite chased him in the first place.
The change of scenery has also freed him to speak more candidly about his time at Old Trafford. Antony stopped short of naming names, but he did not hide his frustration at the atmosphere he encountered.
“Look, I'm not the kind of guy who gets involved in controversies, who names people, in fact, I won't mention anyone's name here,” he said. “But I think there was a bit of a lack of respect there, even a bit of rudeness too, with no one giving you a good morning, a good afternoon.
“Not even that. But, anyway, that's in the past, I won't give much importance to these things. Now I'm here, at Betis, I'm living here, that's the most important thing for me.”
The picture he paints is stark: a dressing room where basic courtesies were missing, where a record signing could walk in and feel cold shoulders rather than open arms. For a young winger arriving from a different league, under intense scrutiny, that kind of environment can bite.
His decision to choose United over Liverpool, then, takes on a different shade. On one side, Klopp, Salah in limbo, a Liverpool squad drilled and defined. On the other, Ten Hag, a fresh start, a reunion, and the pull of a club whose name, as Antony put it, “carries weight.”
He backed the familiarity of his former coach. Salah stayed. Liverpool’s “what if” faded into the background. United’s gamble played out in front of a global audience, and by the time Antony left, the move looked like one of the most scrutinised signings of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.
Now he is thriving in Seville’s heat, not under Manchester’s glare, and reflecting on a career that could have taken a very different route. Liverpool never needed to replace Salah in 2022. United did replace a winger and thought they had found a cornerstone.
Instead, one club kept its icon. The other is still searching for the player they thought £82 million would buy.
