I don't want to repeat what has been said lots of times, Cron, but you're repeating yourself a lot and some of your thoughts show lack of understanding what is happening, despite some of your thesis being spot on.
After long time we're finally topping serie A at winter, which says that something is done correctly. According to you and many others, it's Conte who did this "miracle". Conte found that the 4-3-3 formation is the best for this set of players and, obviously, the three men midfield is the biggest strength of the team since all three men there are quality.
Since you don't change what's bringing you wins and Conte obviously won't change the 3 men midfield, we'll need to create our team having the 4-3-3 formation and the 3 men midfield in mind.
This means that for a 25 men squad, of which 11 players will start the match in a 4-3-3 formation, we will need:
- 2 goalkeepers
- 2 right backs
- 4 center backs
- 2 left backs
- 6 CMs
- 6 attacking players
+
3 additional players (the third goalkeeper and two others, preferably versatile players who can cover 2 or more positions)
Do you agree with this, at least?
If you do, lets continue: Our main strength, the 3 CMs, don't have replacements, except Pazienza. If one of Vidal, Pirlo and Marchisio is out for a month or more, would you like Pazienza to be the first option? I believe you don't. That's why it would be great to have 2 other CMs, one of which at least will have to be quality. You say that Felipe Melo can be that player and I won't mind at all if he is, but Melo won't come back to be a reserve. He was problematic even as a starter. That's where buying a solid player like Montolivo could help this team. Shortly: We do need two new CMs of which at least one needs to be quality. Montolivo definitely isn't a world beater, but he's a very good player and probably better than anything else we could do there right now.
We continue with the attackers. We need 6 attacking players for the 4-3-3 and I'll make it 7, just in case. Right now we have 12 such players! Toni, Del Piero, Vucinic, Quag, Krasic, Pepe, Giaccherini, Amauri, Iaquinta, Estigarribia, Matri and Elia. We need to get rid of 5 of them. Toni, Amauri and Iaquinta are three. If it's Del Piero's last season, that makes it 4. We need to get rid of one of the wingers too. Since only Quag, Matri and Mirko will be the strikers left, we will need to add one more attacker and get rid of one other winger.
Do you finally understand what we're all saying and why we are disagreeing with you? You say we don't need attackers and CMs, but we obviously do.
As for the defense, you're spot on there. We surely need a new LB and we also need some other options for the bench.