Excellent post. I'm in agreement with pretty much everything here. I suppose I've been considering mostly the individual pieces in attack this year, rather than the potential of how they will do playing together. Tevez-Morata was amazingly effective. I think in terms of individual pieces: Morata, Mandzukic, Dybala, Zaza, Coman is stronger and has far better depth than Tevez, Morata, Llorente, Matri, Coman. Especially with Morata and Coman having a year more experience. But it's figuring out how to fit them together in one attack to play effectively where as things stand out attack is "considerably" weaker. It's hard to say how well Morata-Dybala-Mandzukic will play together, and if we get an AM like Draxler what exactly we do with our forwards. It could surprise us, but as things stand, weaker like you say.
Yes, to sumarize it, it's not about the quality of the replacements. The new guys are quality, definitely.
What lingers here is how the chemistry will work out between these guys. IMO a partnership Dybala - Morata upfront could be lethal. The way Mandzukic afects the positioning of these 2 guys and how they will work together is the defining factor of the season IMO.
- - - Updated - - -
Even I was not going to complain about bringing Giovinco back. And i really hated the $#@! he pulled.
But 15 goals and 11 assists ? Thats just impressive, and there are bitter few arguments against bringing such a player back to juventus.
That's why it's not really fair to judge a signing when we already know the outcome. Gotta go back to the transfer date and recall the context.
I remember that when Marotta signed Giovinco, I was on the fence. Wasn't a fan of him; but wasn't against his signing. He just had a great league. Inter was on our backs and just the thought we could lose on him and he could explode at Inter was disgusting.
Actually Giovinco had enough quality to be a decent rotation player for us. His problem is the same as Isla: they are not very smart on the pitch, decision making is very poor, and mainly, they lack the confidence to succeed at a club like Juventus.
Marotta did slightly overpay for him (like for many of the guys he signs from smaller Italian teams, mainly the ones who half was sold already) and this was a bit annoying as it was a recurrence when Marotta did business in Italy.
But all in all, can't criticise Marotta here. It was a decent bet, just didn't work out. The same as with Isla.
- - - Updated - - -
We're going to need time to gel and start firing on all cylinders. An easy group would be a godsend.
Definitely.