Don't know where to post this given the transfer market thread is closed.
The biggest surprise in this mercato was not being able to reduce the squad size. I think for such a long time we were trying to offload Rugani, Dybala, Mandzukic and Higuain (early on), Khedira (early on), Matiuidi, Perin. That is 7 players we were not able to get rid of.
As it stands we have a squad of 27 players (including Han and Pjaca). 5 players would need to be excluded from the Champions league list. In my view 4 are easy choices - i.e Perin, Chiellini (injury), Pjaca, Han. The last one is the more difficult one and I think it should be Bentancur rather than Mandzukic. Can is more versatile and can play as a full back and so can Cuadrado. We currently only have 2 at the moment in Danilo and Sandro with De Sciglio with a short term injury. If Chiellini makes it back for the 2nd half of the champions league (assuming we make it, he comes in for Rugani).
But overall how would I rate the mercato? Well, I have to give it more than 5 but less than a very high score....I will give it a 7. The reason being is that if you look at the squad, the team is better in every department with the exception of full back (due to lack of depth and arguably Cancelo being better offensively than Danilo). Central defense is better (excluding Chiellini injury), Midfield is better technically with Rabiot and Ramsey, while Attack is better given that Higuain is better than Kean.
Easy for us to criticize but what this squad really needed was for guys like Matuidi, Khedira and Can to leave to bring in a truly world class mid like Pogba. That is what would have really given us that leap up in quality. But unfortunately, the players that needed to be sacrificed in order to do something like that were not willing to leave