Whilst yes we need a striker we are pretty much fecked, we need to sort out our midfield, so that means spending good money on a midfielder. If we don't we can forget any other position lets be honest. We haven't got the money to buy a world class midfielder and world class striker. With Nunez selling for 85m, Nkunku valued at 100m, Haaland obviously gone, and other options we might look at being unavailable I don't see where we will pick up a striker good enough to be in our front line, bog standard strikers are edging up north of 60m, for players that would barely be worth having. I am assuming ETH wants to bring in players who know his system to help kick start the change. De Jong is an obvious choice, with Barca needing to sell, and he is quality and can make the system work. The problem is then who does he bring in outside of that who would actually be worth having, and my guess is that he believes Antony is top quality, knows how to play the system and so will hit the ground running. Whilst raphinha knows the league he doesn't know ETH gameplan, and so would take time to bring on board, add in that he will likely cost more than Antony, and doesn't have significantly more to offer in stats or potential.
If Ajax had a centre forward worth stealing I think we would be getting him instead, Haller I imagine is someone ETH doesnt see as working here, and we know he would really like to bring in some defensive players from Ajax but that probably wont happen. So Antony coming does have some logic, my guess is that he thinks that he can utilise Ronaldo, Rashford and Martial at a pinch, or maybe use even Bruno a deep false 9. I can see however the value of bringing in players who already know how the manager wants to train and play.
