In my opinion, our attack needs a complete rebuild. My ideal signings would be Kane and Kvaratskhelia, although that probably feels unrealistic at this point.
I’m not a fan of Vinícius Jr.’s antics, but if Kvara isn’t attainable, we should seriously push for him instead. His contract situation seems to be dragging on, and Madrid may eventually realise that keeping both him and Mbappé long term could be detrimental to the team tactically.
Up front, if Kane isn’t possible, I’d target João Pedro or Julián Álvarez. I’d also move Havertz on and use Merino as a full-time centre forward. That would give us three very different attacking profiles: João Pedro/Álvarez, Merino as the Havertz replacement, and Gyökeres.
The type of forwards we should be targeting are players with explosive acceleration, high football IQ, the ability to manipulate the ball in tight spaces, and the quality to create something out of nothing.
We need to get back to being a team that can launch dangerous attacks with only two or three forwards, similar to PSG or Liverpool in recent years with Salah and Díaz, or previously with Mané–Firmino–Salah. Right now — and this has been true for a while — we need to commit too many players forward before we can create anything meaningful.
I genuinely wouldn’t trust us to score, or even force a top save, from a 3v3 situation — never mind a 4v3 against us. More often than not, we slow the attack down and recycle possession backwards or sideways while waiting for support to arrive. That has to change, and for me it starts with a complete overhaul of the attack.
