Man Utd picked the wrong Ant(h)ony! Academy graduate Elanga making Erik ten Hag's decision to sell him look foolish as £86m signing struggles

It is worth pointing out that the initial hype about Elanga generated was slightly wide of the mark and the Swede was not yet ready to be United's saviour. He was still only 19 and struggled to sparkle in the second-leg defeat against Atletico Madrid and in the numerous other matches he started in the final stretch of that dismal campaign, in which United recorded their lowest ever points total in the Premier League.

But he had shown enough promise not to be completely written off either, yet that is what Erik ten Hag seemed to do when he took over later that summer. The manager did give Elanga three consecutive starts early on in the season against Liverpool, Southampton and Leicester and he did not quite deliver, but he can't have been playing too badly as United won all three. By that point, however, Ten Hag had effectively undermined the Swede by urging the club to sign Antony from Ajax and at an extortionately high cost.

The manager had naturally wanted extra reinforcements after the opening defeats to Brighton and Brentford but if there was one area of the squad that definitely did not need addressing, it was wide forwards. Antony's arrival took the number of wingers to four, joining Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Elanga. It was five if you counted Alejandro Garnacho, who had come on the pre-season tour and soon began knocking on the first team's door.

Garnacho's stunning performances deservedly saw him get more and more opportunities and Elanga continued to be marginalised. And this was despite the fact that Antony's promising start (three goals in his first three games, a club record) had quickly given way to a barren period in which the Brazilian contributed zero goals and zero assists in the league in the space of six months.

Elanga ended the campaign with just seven starts in all competitions. His last appearance was hardly a nice memory, being introduced for the final five minutes of the humiliating 7-0 demolition by Liverpool at Anfield, when United were already six goals down.

Elanga was one of many players the club had decided to sell last summer but one of the few there was legitimate interest in. Forest, who love a transfer nearly as much as Chelsea, were glad to take Elanga off United's hands and the forward knew he had to make the move to get his stalling career back on track.

"It is the right time now for the perfect next step in my career. I'm someone who lives for football and I need to be on the pitch every week doing what I love," Elanga wrote in an emotional farewell statement. "We'll always have 'Rhythm is a dancer'. It meant the world to me and my family every time that we heard that chant."

Elanga has been superb for Forest, lighting up an otherwise tricky season for the Tricky Trees. He needed less than two minutes of action off the bench away to Arsenal to get his first assist for Forest and did not take long to get his first goal, the only strike in a historic win at Chelsea.

In 18 starts and seven appearances as a sub, Elanga has five goals and seven assists in the Premier League. That's more goal contributions than any other Forest player and indeed any United player. And it's a darn sight better than Antony, who has no goals and no assists in the league despite making 20 appearances.

United might well be looking back at the decision to get rid of Elanga as one of many recruitment errors they have made in the last few years and which Sir Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS experts will be seeking to put right now they have taken control of the club's football operation.

Looking at how well Elanga has done at the City Ground, Forest got a real bargain while United badly sold themselves short in accepting just £15m for a player who has out-scored every United player bar Scott McTominay and Hojlund. Elanga, however, does not appear to be looking back.

“Sometimes football is like that, it might not always work somewhere,” Elanga told The Times. “I had seen what he [Ten Hag] did at Ajax so I was looking forward to it but I just didn’t get the opportunities.

“It was difficult but it was needed because I wanted to play and I didn’t want to spend another season just playing 10 minutes or not playing for 10 games. I wanted a fresh start but I knew it wouldn’t be easy leaving a club that I had been at for nine years."

While Elanga has thrived away from United, Antony has continued to flop while remaining with the Red Devils. And the City Ground has mixed memories for the Brazilian. Last year he broke his six-month goal drought by scoring for United and got a rare assist by setting up Diogo Dalot in a sweeping move.

But in December he had one of his worst ever games for United in a grim 2-1 defeat. To make matters worse, he was outshone by Elanga. Former United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel did not hold back in his criticism: "He doesn't give much to the team. He frustrates his team-mates. It's really frustrating. He's had an opportunity for a long time, this is a player that hasn't scored this season, he's not made an assist and he's not scored, it's like he's not really understanding the game."

Antony has not started a league match since that drab performance at the City Ground. He has, at least, managed to get off the mark for the season, getting his only goal and assist in the 4-2 win over fourth division Newport County in the FA Cup fourth round.

After that match he gave a defiant interview in which he vowed to put things right. "I fought hard to reach the levels of playing for this club, I know I can build on yesterday’s performance and continue to show my qualities," he said. "I pushed myself day after day for better performances.

"I will continue to completely close myself off to improve and play the football that United hired me to do. The whole club, every fan, deserves the best from each one of us. United is one of the biggest clubs in the world, where everyone wants to be and it's where I want to build my story."

Antony has played just 20 minutes of football since Newport. The injury to Rasmus Hojlund should have given him the chance to fight his way back into the team but instead he was left out of the team for United's last game at Fulham, with Ten Hag instead opting for 19-year-old Omari Forson, who had previously played just four minutes of first-team football and is out of contract at the end of the season.

When Forson was brought off in the second half, the manager chose to bring on Scott McTominay. He finally introduced Antony in the 98th minute, allowing him just enough time to touch the ball once. To make matters worse, it was Antony's 24th birthday.

Ten Hag has been a keen defender of Antony and stood by him even after shocking allegations against the footballer were made by his former girlfriend Gabriela Cavallin, with two more women making troubling accusations against him soon after. Antony denies all the allegations against him and has not been charged, although investigations are still ongoing in Brazil and England.

The manager has also suggested that the investigations have affected Antony's form. “I think it’s very simple. His off-field issues stop him playing," Ten Hag said in January. "From the moment he was out and then he came back and didn’t deliver the performance you should expect from him and he can do so much better.

“It has had an effect, an impact on him, definitely, so he has to deal with that. He caused them [issues], he has to sort them out, but he has to do better [on the field].”

Before the Fulham game, Ten Hag again admitted that Antony was not performing as expected. "He has to prove a point, that he will do. And he has big potential. He hasn’t shown it lately, but I know what his talent is, and it’s about proving his talent, and it’s about him," he said.

But after nearly two years in English football, Ten Hag seems to be the only person who thinks Antony has the quality to succeed at the highest level. And before the trip to Forest, he made a truly baffling assessment of his ability, given how badly the Brazilian has performed.

"I know from the past he is unstoppable, no defender can stop him because he's one of the quickest in the first 10 yards," he said. "When he plays that game I'm sure he will perform, he is resilient, he is a character."

The truth is that many, many defenders have been able to stop Antony. He has nine goals and four assists in 70 matches for United. This season, the only team that have been unable to stop him have been Newport, who are currently 16th in League Two, the fourth division of English football.

How much evidence does Ten Hag need to show him that Antony is not cut out for the Premier League? Perhaps he will have another chance to prove himself against Forest. But on the other side will be another player who will be hoping to prove United wrong when they let him go last summer.

“For me it’s about showing I can do it against any team," Elanga told The Times. "Especially coming up against your old team, you want to show them even more that you can do it.”

Elanga has already given United reason to believe they made a mistake and if he can kick them out of the FA Cup and quash any hopes of ending the season on a high, the club's hierarchy, not least Ten Hag, will be kicking themselves.