Without European football our mercato should change. This is the infamous transitional year in every sense of the word, the main objectives should be creating a financial healthy environment plus having a group filled with players who could use fighting for the top 3 places without the European games applying pressure on the calendar. Our situation makes me think of Milan’s year when they purposefully went a year without EL in order to not get in problems with the FFP. That benefited them in the long haul
At this point Sandro, Bonucci and Tek have to leave.
If we have to sacrifice someone between Chiesa and Vlahovic the decision is obvious for me. And honestly we should discuss what does the team benefit of having Lukaku a year on loan, because Milik, Kean and Lukaku is quite a lot for a year without Europe. Plus loaning is throwing a bunch of money down the drain while we already did this with Morata and Paredes. If Vlahovic has to be sacrificed I surely wouldn’t go for Lukaku. Either keep Vlahovic or replace him with a striker who we expect to stay for multiple years and with resale value.
The same goes basically for Kessie. I do think that a midfield with Pogba, Rabiot, Loca, Fagioli, Rovella and two of Caviglia/Miretti/Barrenechea is worth trying. It’s as cheap as it gets and we have the luxury of a relatively easy calendar along with not having the Scudetto as main objective.
Id just go for something like this:
Chiesa - Vlahovic - X
Rabiot - Loca - Fagioli
Augusto - Bremer - Danilo - Weah
Perin
Iling - Kean - Soule/Yildiz
Pogba - Rovella - Miretti/Hans
Cambiaso - Gatti - De Winter/Huijsen - X
X
(might use De Winter at RB if we sign that Uruguayan guy)
Its not flashy by any means and far from the standard we had just 3 years ago, but at least with enough young and cheap players who have all the potential. We should focus on signing a good winger and a additional back it seems.
Side note here is that we have two options imo. Either we invest in expensive players for the instants succes formula, or we accept a longer period with these young players. Because building a foundation from just one season is still a relatively short period and without serious investments it might take us a few years before we can try to win the league again.