So pending the Acerbi dilemma of whether he's a wrestler or the devil, this is how I see the summer going:
- Budget is zero for once and not negative.
- We sell Dumfries if we don't reach to an agreement. Price around 30m.
- We try to offload Correa and Arnautovic. Maybe at any cost since we'll be covered with the FIFA WCC influx later on. Let's say we find someone to pay 7-8m for Correa and we cut Marko loose or keep him as a token player if we don't want to do that. Don't see anyone offering anything north of 1m anyway.
- We let Sensi, Klaassen and Cuadrado go.
- We don't extend Audero loan or exercise whatever option if any.
- De Vrij, depending on his situation. He wants to go back home and be a starter, win a local trophy which he's missing. PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord can spend on the transfer market, but not sure on a 32 year old CB. He's more valuable to Feyenoord since they produced him. We can squeeze 10m I believe, if there's a bidding war between them.
- We keep Di Gennaro on, because why not?
- We make Sanchez an offer he'll probably reject only to return later and accept it. As 5th forward.
- We go for Gudmundsson for a 35m valuation. We give them Carboni and Asllani and call it even, if they don't want the loan+ concept. Buyback clause for both.
- We welcome Taremi and Zielinski.
- I don't see us getting Bento (15m?) or any other GK on a fee.
Meret on a free sounds very interesting but I doubt we pull it off. It's more likely we go for someone like Ospina, Patricio or Navas.
- We will need a RWB, maybe two if Buchanan isn't up to the task of relieving that guy for 20-30 minutes a night - since Darmian should slowly be dropped at RCB and LCB exclusively, at least in important games.
No idea who this name should be. We cannot afford Frimpong who would be the best possible transfer, so...? I'd take up Zanotti and give him the time in preseason to showcase his abilities, but we still need a starter. Buchanan can be the last option that also allows an inverted LWB if Augusto is the LCB.
If Buchanan isn't ready and we loan him, I'd take Faraoni as the main RWB backup.
- If De Vrij goes, we'll get a CB. Since money is an issue, the option of Tosin Adarabioyo will surface but this is something that requires proactive effort.
Witsel is also leaving Atletico iirc, we could give him a one year deal and I think he'd do well as a middle CB in our setup.
Just hope we don't go for Rugani (love the wife though) or Coates.
- In the middle we'll have Barella, Hakan, Mkhitaryan, Zielinski and Frattesi. We use that Dumfries money to buy Colpani.
- Up front there'll be Lautaro, Thuram, Gudmundsson, Taremi and maybe our two current backups. Or one of them.
Not sure what happens with Acerbi. Either way, I don't think we'll tear the contract up and he'll stay no matter what. Especially if De Vrij is settled on leaving.
Just hope we don't see any starters leaving this time around. We keep draining starters and eventually we'll run out.
Dumfries is the only starter we can afford to lose here. The rest of the team can be improved, but we need to see minutes readjusted with quality rather than replacing guys and keeping a thin bench.