Manchester United enter another moral maze as Antony return poses questions

A winger is returning to training with Manchester United. He will be available for selection: not against Crystal Palace on Saturday but soon. It is not Jadon Sancho but Antony, who has been on a leave of absence after three women accused him of assault.

If Erik ten Hag was confronted with the question of whether he is guilty of double standards, in bringing back his own biggest buy but not a player who criticised him on social media, he emphasised the differences in his answer. “Those issues are nothing to do with each other,” he said. “One is internal, the other one is external.”

Which is correct up until a point. There could also seem a simpler solution to the internal affair: should Sancho apologise to Ten Hag, perhaps he would be welcomed back into the fold. Instead, his exile seems indefinite.

Meanwhile, Antony has sat out four games, will miss a fifth but could be back in contention soon afterwards, opening up the possibility of a return against either Galatasaray on Tuesday or Brentford next weekend. Ten Hag expects the Brazilian to be physically fit. The issue instead is if he is mentally ready to play. “I can’t tell at the moment; first he has to be back,” the Dutchman said. “I have spoken to him but that doesn’t give the impression how he is; how his mental status is.”

Others may argue that such concerns should also be expressed for Gabriella Cavallin, his former girlfriend, and Rayssa de Freitas and Ingrid Lana, who also made serious accusations against him. In each of their club statements, United have stressed that they condemn abuse of and violence towards women.

Meanwhile, Antony has repeatedly insisted he is innocent. He returned to the UK from his native Sao Paulo this week and was voluntarily interviewed by Greater Manchester Police on Thursday, just as he had spoken to their Brazilian counterparts in June. So far, he has not been arrested, bailed or charged. United have said they will review developments, meaning his situation could change.

Brazil opted to withdraw Antony from their squad earlier this month in light of an interview Cavallin gave; later that week, United, who had initially merely “acknowledged” the accusations then put him on a leave of absence a few days afterwards. Now their decision would seem to be that, without him being charged and barring new revelations, their timescale will not be determined by two police forces. Neither has yet officially said that they will not bring charges; if there is the prospect that no such announcement might come from Brazil for months or years, Antony might have lingered in limbo and United been deprived of an £86m signing.

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There is the principle of innocent until proven guilty. It matters and would render Antony available to do many another job. But there is also the reality that playing for United is not just another job, the context of Mason Greenwood’s situation and the fact that the club explored the possibility of bringing back another forward who was not convicted of a crime but whose behaviour many felt was unpleasant in the extreme. Antony, meanwhile, was accused of trying to throw a pregnant Cavallin out of a car, of punching and headbutting her.

Earlier this month, the Female Fans Against Greenwood’s Return group described the allegations against Antony as “horrific” while the television presenter and United supporter Rachel Riley criticised the club for a lack of due diligence in signing the winger after a report had been lodged with police about him.

It remains to be seen what kind of reception Antony receives when he takes the field: within Old Trafford and from the wider United fanbase, inside and outside grounds. Picking him again could be a divisive move.

Ten Hag has not entered the moral argument but from a footballing perspective, he seems to want to call upon Antony. Rewind a couple of months and it may have seemed that United’s three best options on the right wing would be Antony, Greenwood and Sancho.

In the last four games, with none available for reasons unrelated to injury or illness, United first played without a right winger – when their lack of width was exploited by Brighton, whose left-back Tariq Lamptey got two assists – and have used the rookie Facundo Pellestri there twice, including away at Bayern Munich, and the captain Bruno Fernandes there at Burnley, where he got the winner.

The assumption now must be that Antony will soon reclaim his position. Not for the first time at Old Trafford of late, United are trying to navigate their way through a moral maze. It is far from certain they have taken the right turn.