Last year our midfield was Pogba-Marchisio-Khedira. This year it's Pjanic-Marchisio-Khedira.
Pogba has already been replaced.
Lemina looks to take a step up this year so he might be good enough to rotate with Khedira which is an improvement over last year.
But we are clearly lacking a vice-Marchisio. That's why Matic or Gustavo seems likely. But I'm not sure that another CM on top of that will be in the cards.
Pjanic-Marchisio-Khedira
(Asamoah)-(Matic)-(Lemina)
Sturaro, Pereyra.
Ideally, we could move Pereyra and replace him with some more quality but I wouldn't be shocked if our only CM acquisition is simply a vice-Marchisio.
Yes and No
Yes Pjanic will be replacing Pogba
No he hasnt been properly replaced as we needed to improve our midfield and in fact not only we didnt improve our midfield we have weakened it! How? Pjanic vs Pogba the later is clearly the better player!
Pogba has contributed defensively and in attack creating a lot + his shooting is a constant threat! Also Pogba is physical which give us physical strength in midfield!
This is why our mid has become weaker!
The point is to make us stronger and Pjanic+Higuain made us stronger in terms of overall but in midfield we certainly became weaker!
a great box to box player is needed in order to complete the 3-5-2 formation