Top ten Man Utd defectors thriving away from Old Trafford features Antony but not Rashford…yet

At least as funny as Manchester United being rubbish is former Red Devils excelling having escaped Old Trafford.

Antony is the most recent and hilariously damning example of the value in leaving the club and he makes this list, but there’s no place for Marcus Rashford, though he will surely be pretty high up come the end of his half-season with Aston Villa, or for Jadon Sancho, whose shocking recent form for Chelsea bucks the trend among United defectors.

10) Andreas Pereira
We wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s a fraud, but he’s not as good as those who don’t watch Fulham week in, week out think he is and nowhere near as good as he thinks he is, with his always high chance-creation metrics benefitting hugely by him being about the only Premier League player taking every set-piece going.

He wanted to leave for Marseille in the summer and weirdly said as much after that transfer fell through, and we can’t imagine a majority of Fulham fans would be too disappointed to see him leave. That said, he’s been a solid Premier League player and United haven’t ever been in a position to turn their noses up at those since his departure in 2022.

9) Romelu Lukaku
It’s been far from plain sailing since he left Old Trafford, with Lukaku managing to spectacularly burn bridges with two of his once-great loves in Chelsea and Inter. But he scored a bundle of goals for the latter to help them to the Scudetto and while United fans presumably enjoyed the striker’s struggles on his return to Chelsea, it’s perhaps worth noting that he still managed a goal every 183 minutes in his second spell at Stamford Bridge, which sh*ts all over Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee, who have scored a goal every 279 minutes combined this season.

8) Alvaro Carreras
We imagine the Manchester United scouts mumbled Alvaro Carreras’ name when asked which player they were keeping an eye on while in the stands at Benfica games. What, the player you just sold to us in the summer? Yes, that’s him there, running riot down the left wing against Barcelona.

They decided not to take up the option of buying back a player they sold for £5m for a markup of 200 per cent in six months, presumably out of embarrassment as much as anything, with the cost of saving face (hahaha) leading them to instead pay £25m for Patrick Dorgu.

7) Cristiano Ronaldo
Turns out the greatest goalscorer of all time failing to press effectively wasn’t the biggest problem at Manchester United. Who knew? Perhaps with our view clouded by his insurmountable arrogance and desire to make everything All About Him right up to the point of his exit, we weren’t sad to see him leave and were pretty convinced it would benefit United.

But any improvement in their attacking dynamism (which hasn’t been obvious anyway) has been more than nullified by no f***er being able to put the ball in the back of the net. Marcus Rashford is United’s top post-Ronaldo goalscorer with 37, while the man himself has racked up 82.

Not further up this list because lads, it’s Saudi Arabia.

6) Angel Gomes
He’s been injured for much of this season which goes a fair way towards explaining why the Manchester United Return rumours haven’t been quite so frequent and widespread, but speaking for every England fan we have a message to Gomes with just over four months left to run on his Lille contract: Don’t Do It.

We don’t know how to fix the broken midfield that Amorim inherited and has done nothing to mend, with the Tottenham game providing clear evidence of its enduring porosity. But with Manuel Ugarte the latest canary sent down the mine to suffocate while Wonderkid Kobbie Mainoo struggles for air, we wouldn’t wish what looks like a futile undertaking on our worst enemies let alone such a nice and talented lad who we would prefer had his confidence stripped away to nothing while playing in the 2026 World Cup for England rather than before, thank you very much.

5) Antony
Probably the most expensive flop in Manchester United history, whose 17 goal contributions came at a rate of one every 320 minutes or one per £5m, now has three goals and an assist along with three MOTM displays in four games for Real Betis.

There may never have been a more explicit, immediate and comical example of the grass being greener away from Old Trafford and if the United directors aren’t currently looking at each other and asking ‘are we the baddies?’ then they never will.

“I think the most important thing is to be happy,” Antony said when asked about his remarkable upturn in form after his key role in the victory over Real Sociedad on Sunday. Doesn’t take much to read between those lines. Would he be happy at Bayern?

4) Danny Welbeck
Erik ten Hag supposedly gave ‘serious thought’ to re-signing Welbeck last summer while Gary Neville reckons he should never have been sold and would be “perfect” for United right now.

He’s undoubtedly been a whole lot better for Brighton than any forward has been for United, though a spade with a face painted on it would have been roughly as much use as Hojlund and Zirkzee this season.

But while Welbeck’s experience may give him some resistance against the United virus, and his presence at Old Trafford at the end of The Glory Years may also hold him in good stead, we imagine his reaction to links with his former club will have led to puffed-out cheeks and slumping shoulders from a man without the energy for that b*llocks.

3) Anthony Elanga
He’s got more Premier League assists (8) this season than any Manchester United player, and – incredibly – more than all of them combined aside from Bruno Fernandes (6) and Amad Diallo (6), with the rest of Ruben Amorim’s rabble managing just seven between them. And this isn’t a flash in the pan: his nine last season was also more than any United player.

Perhaps more depressing for United fans is the knowledge that Elanga definitely wouldn’t have had that many assists had he remained at Old Trafford, with neither Hojlund nor Zirkzee providing anything close to the Fox In The Boxiness of Christopher Wood.

2) Mason Greenwood
Knowing what we do now about Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his ruthless Give A Sh*t approach to running a football club, particularly his very apparent apathy towards the women’s team, we’re more than a bit surprised that he opted to sell one of Manchester United’s most talented academy graduates this century rather than dealing with what would likely have been an exasperatingly all-too brief PR nightmare before All That Off Field Stuff was inevitably and infuriatingly brushed under the carpet.

The frustration at seeing Greenwood second in the Ligue 1 goalscoring charts with 14 in 22 games will be offset somewhat by some very surprising forethought on the part of the transfer whizzess at Old Trafford which will see United reap huge reward for any future sales courtesy of a 50 per cent sell-on clause.

Should Paris Saint-Germain be successful in their supposed €75m offer the Red Devils will earn more through that move than when they sold him to Marseille last summer.

1) Scott McTominay
McTominay has six goals and four assists in Napoli’s charge to the title, with Antonio Conte describing him as a “complete player” who can, and has, played in multiple positions this season.

The Italian press have dubbed him ‘the new leader of Napoli’ as an ‘undroppable’ driving force in Conte’s midfield. A banner which reads “Napoli. McTominay. Pizza. In that order” can now be found hanging on the wall of a restaurant close to Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. No such banner can be found extolling the virtues of Mason Mount in the Stretford-Chester Road KFC.