the big problem with signing a CF is that there aren't many surefire options available for a realistic price.
who are the 10 best strikers/CFs in the world?
messi, ibra, aguero, muller, costa...??
after that, you have the likes of benzema, higuain and others. would you compare higuain to ibra? no way. messi is obviously not for sale. maybe if we bid £70m for aguero it would make citeh consider. you're not getting muller or costa. and ibra is nearing the end and wenger would never go that route.
personally, i'd rather spend £30m on a winger like reus than £25m on a houseboat player like jackson martinez or someone two rungs below the top like higuain. while i dont rate benzema like some do on here, hes a good player, but is he worth the £35-40m madrid would likely demand? i dont think he is.
if you look at the 11 positions on the pitch, the areas where we can upgrade are GK, CB, LB, and ST. we look ready to upgrade at GK. CB is less certain. someone like hummels would be a big upgrade over mert. but with both gabriel and chambers, it seems unlikely we'll spend big there. gibbs is shit at LB, monreal had a good season, but we could have done with an elite LB. we've been linked to ric rod, which is nice. if we buy a CM, it seems like it will be someone to provide a challenge/depth for coquelin. you can bet that cazorla, ramsey, and wilshere are going to play a ton at CM, so i doubt we're going to spend £60m on pogba. £25m for schneiderlin even seems a stretch.
up front is where we have the most opportunity to try new things, but even there we have a lot of options. welbeck isn't going anywhere, despite the wishes of most of this forum. if fit, ozil and alexis are going to start every match.
my wish is that we set up this season with 2 distinct formations, one for when we plan to attack and take the game to the other team, the other for when we plan to play a more measured, balanced game. for the primary formation, we should play a 4-1-2-3 formation, with coquelin deep, ramsey and ozil ahead, and then alexis, walcott and giroud up front. obviously in this setup, we could buy someone like reus, and then play either walcott or alexis in the middle with the other playing on the right. you need ramsey to be disciplined in this setup, which i think may be a problem, because ozil even with his improved workrate, isn't going to be tracking back into his own box and racking up 5 tackles a game. in this formation, cazorla becomes a backup to ozil, wilshere is the backup to ramsey, and then we need a new DM to backup/rotate with coquelin. schneiderlin.
in our "balanced" formation, we'd play a 4-2-3-1, with schneiderlin/coquelin deep, ozil at 10, play either giroud, walcott, or alexis up top, reus left, and then either ramsey or one of the other forwards who isn't playing up top at RW. in bigger games where we may have to cede possession for spells, id feel confident with coq and schneiderlin breaking up play by playing as a tandem. that isn't really needed in probably 75% of the matches we'll play next season.
so, if we sign cech, schneiderlin and reus, i think thats a pretty great summer. reus has also played ST in the past, hes not a conversion project, hes an option there. i think those 3 cost us £65m. so you could probably forget about draxler. however, signing draxler instead of reus, for £10m less, seems more realistic. and in that scenario, i think id prefer that and try to squeeze ric rod in and send gibbs away.
