Antony Reveals Liverpool Bid and Klopp Call Amid Salah's Future
Antony’s Manchester United story has been pulled apart often enough. The fee, the output, the struggle to adapt. What had never truly surfaced, until now, was just how close he came to walking into a very different dressing room – and possibly a very different role in the Premier League’s recent history.
Speaking to ESPN Brazil, the Brazilian winger revealed that Liverpool, not United, were first in with a firm proposal as he prepared to leave Ajax in 2022. At that point, the landscape around Anfield looked uncertain. Mohamed Salah’s contract talks dragged on, his future openly questioned, and Jürgen Klopp began to scan the market for a potential heir to Liverpool’s right flank.
“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.”
That single line – “The name of Manchester United carries weight” – ultimately decided the story.
Klopp’s Liverpool had moved early. With Salah’s situation unresolved, they sounded out options and, according to Antony, put down a concrete offer. The plan was clear: if the Egyptian moved on, Liverpool wanted to be ready. Antony, electric at Ajax under Erik ten Hag, fitted the profile – left-footed, direct, able to operate off the right and attack full-backs one-on-one.
United, though, had something Liverpool could not match: Ten Hag himself. The Dutchman had built Antony up in Amsterdam, trusted him, structured attacks around his strengths. When United finally pushed their chips in, they did so hard – a package worth around £82 million – and gave the winger the chance to follow his old coach into one of football’s most scrutinised clubs.
The pressure told on both sides of the divide.
Salah stayed, signed his new deal and remained Liverpool’s attacking reference point. Across his time at Anfield he amassed 257 goals in 442 games in all competitions, dragging the club to titles and trophies and etching his name into club folklore. He even added another Premier League crown to his collection. Only this season has there been a hint of erosion in those numbers, with 12 goals in 41 appearances marking a clear dip by his own towering standards.
Antony’s path could not have been more different. The price tag hung over him from the first day at Old Trafford. There were flashes – big Champions League nights, a few decisive league moments – but never the sustained, ruthless output that fee demanded. Criticism became constant. Confidence drained. The narrative hardened: an £82 million gamble that never paid off.
Last summer, United cut ties and Antony left on a permanent deal, resurfacing at Real Betis. In Spain, away from the Premier League glare, he has quietly rebuilt his reputation. Fourteen goals and 10 assists in 46 games across all competitions this season tell of a player who has finally found rhythm again, the end product that once made him one of Europe’s most coveted young wingers returning in green and white.
From a distance, he has also started to unpack what went wrong in Manchester.
“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 told ESPN Brazil. “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.”
It is a revealing glimpse into the human side of a transfer often reduced to spreadsheets and highlight reels. Antony speaks less about tactics and more about daily treatment, about the small courtesies that make a player feel part of a club. For him, those details clearly mattered.
The what-if, though, lingers. Had Salah pushed for the exit and Liverpool cashed in, Antony might have walked into a front line built on structure, pressing patterns and long-established automatisms. Instead, he landed at a United side still trying to work out what it wanted to be under a new manager, with chaos never far from the surface.
Liverpool kept their superstar and squeezed four more years out of one of the most devastating forwards the league has seen. United got their man, but never truly unlocked him. Betis now enjoy the version of Antony that both English giants thought they were signing.
One contract decision at Anfield closed a door and opened another at Old Trafford. Two careers spun off in opposite directions. And as Antony thrives in Seville, the question now is not what might have happened at Liverpool, but whether his resurgence in Spain is the start of the career arc many once expected – just in a very different shade of green.
