Midfield, Attack?

marktan said:

While I'm happy that we're shoring up our backline, anyone else really worried about the state of our midfield and front 3?

Having lost Herrera and possibly Lukaku, our midfield and front 3 would be:

Matic - Mctominay - Pogba
Lingard - Rashford - Martial

In midfield we're way to reliant on Pogba creating, I'm happy enough with Scott for his energy and quality, I like Matic too but he has slowed down and we really have no decent cover in there. Someone like Ndombele with his energy and ball playing skills would've been perfect - do we have anyone lined up at all?

In attack we're relying on Rashford to be more consistent in his decision making, which would be fine if the two surrounding him in Martial and Lingard weren't even worse at it and have about one good game in 10. I really can't believe the only attacking upgrade we've made is a guy from the championship who looks like he may as well be an academy player? Greenwood will grow but really we'll struggle with our current attacking options.

Anyone else as worried as I am? Can we expect any signings in these two positions before the window closes in 2 and a half weeks time?

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I'd have thought so yes.

I think you're forgetting Sanchez

Longstaff and Bruno. Get it done, Woody.

We arent signing anyone for the front 3 regardless of Lukaku leaving IMO. Lukaku is a back up striker, the new backup strikers are basically Sanchez and Greenwood. By the end of the season, our starting front 3 will be Martial, Rashford and Greenwood and backups for them will be Sanchez, Chong, James with Lingard filling in at some of those positions (Mata/Gomes in midfield/the 10). Its a very inexperienced front line of course, but it's not bad and with the year to develop itll be fine, especially with the pretty obvious plan to go all in for Sancho next summer. So swap Sanchez with Sancho (and bump someone down as depth) and that's the longer term plan I'm sure.

Midfield though I agree. It looks like Ole's plan is a 4-2-3-1 with Pogba as one of the 2, so the sitting midfielders would be Matic or McTominay, and Fred being Pogbas back up, with Pereira rotating in there or further up or a mixture of them as a midfield 3. Again, not awful, but I'd prefer us to sign a holding midfielder to sit at the base of a 3, push Pogba up as the most advanced midfielder and have McTominay as the box to box. We'll see how they develop though. Centerback we definitely need Maguire and I think that'll be that with our summer business.