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Rewind to last summer and Manchester United were in disarray when Erik ten Hag took over the reins and almost all areas of the squad needed upgrading.
And the Dutch boss started with the most obvious one — defence and midfield. He had seen enough to realise that Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof were not good enough to start for the Red Devils.
The same treatment was meted out to the much-maligned pair of Scott McTominay and Fred and in came Lisandro Martinez, Casemiro and Christian Eriksen.
CR7’s uncertain future led to Antony arriving
But there were doubts surrounding the future of Cristiano Ronaldo and which club would come in and save the former Ajax coach from a world of pain.
Despite super agent Jorge Mendes’ best attempts, no club came forth to offer the Portuguese an escape route and United were stuck with their legendary No 7.
Ten Hag must have thought he could use the Portugal international’s talents in a way so as to benefit the club and hence went for strengthening the wing and in came Antony for an inflated €100million.
According to journalist Ciro Venerato, United could have instead focussed their efforts in getting Victor Osimhen from Napoli and the deal could have been done.
Incidentally, the Nigerian is one of the top targets ahead of this summer after a splendid season in which he is on course to win the Golden Boot and his club the Serie A title.
Osimhen could have come to Old Trafford last summer
The deal that was being discussed back then was the former Real Madrid man would be heading to Naples while Osimhen would come to Old Trafford.
“United had already followed him last year, then chose to spend 100m for Antony. But he talked about it with Mendes who proposed Ronaldo to Napoli with the salary almost entirely paid by United and 100 million cash for Osimhen.
“Then the thing was not done because Napoli was not available to try Osimhen and above all to take Ronaldo,” the journalist reported.
Ronaldo ended up departing under acrimonious circumstances just before the World Cup and United have been forced to play the majority of the season without a recognised striker.
The Reds will find it much more difficult to get Osimhen this time around with Napoli looking to keep him while Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Real Madrid all in the race.
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