They are an eclectic group at Manchester United. Omari Forson, the teenager who has played barely an hour of Premier League football. Facundo Pellistri, farmed out on loan to Granada. Aaron Wan-Bissaka, a right-back whose attacking deficiencies are scarcely a secret. Jonny Evans, the 36-year-old centre-back who almost retired last summer. Lisandro Martinez, the centre-back who has been injured for almost all of the campaign. They form part of the group of players at Old Trafford with one Premier League assist this season. Which, to put it another way, is one more than winger Antony, the diabolical £85m signing from Ajax. The Brazilian's damning lack of goals has been noted more - on 16 April, he will bring up a year without scoring against any team in the top three divisions - but he hasn't helped anyone else find the net either. A sophomore season at Old Trafford has brought different forms of indignity for Antony. Against Fulham, Erik ten Hag used three players on the right wing - the rookie Forson, the No 10 Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo - and brought him on in the 99th minute and on the left wing. On Sunday, United were drawing the Manchester derby when Antony came on. They lost 3-1. They may face different kind of losses where the second most expensive signing in their history is concerned. If Antony has been a footballing problem, he is also a Financial Fair Play problem, a player who could impede a new regime's ability to reshape the squad. Because if the recent signs are that even Ten Hag may have given up on Antony, long after everyone else did, it is still likelier that any new manager would not want him. But if it is a statement of the obvious that United will never recoup the £85m they paid Ajax in 2022, the reality is that getting anything under £51m this summer would harm their ability to buy. So, in a different way, would keeping him. There is a logic to cutting their losses, to recouping whatever amount they can and putting it towards finding a replacement. And yet because transfers are amortised over the length of the contract in the accounts and Antony will be two years into a five-year deal, he will retain a book value of £51m. So if, in some respects, United would do very well to get £30m for such a limited, predictable, unproductive player, whose only goal and assist this season have both come against League Two Newport County, in others, they would do very badly. Sell him for £20m - and who would pay that? - and it is a book loss of £31m that would affect United's purchasing power. In part because of Antony, United have spent £400m in Ten Hag's reign. It gave them very little wiggle room within FFP this season; a new financial year will bring some, but that would be greater with significant sales and lessened if there are losses in the wrong columns. Some of it is not a question of Sir Jim Ratcliffe's wealth or his willingness to buy but of how to get rid of players without writing off huge sums and their own ability to spend. Because there are troubles with the Ineos billionaire's inheritance; it limits the room for manoeuvre. He and his new brains trust - Sir Dave Brailsford, Jean-Claude Blanc, Omar Berrada, probably Dan Ashworth, perhaps Dougie Freedman or Jason Wilcox - may have to excel to both get players out and to do so without suffering a significant loss on the Profitability and Sustainability Rules balance sheet.