Savage is jumping the gun, but in fairness Alisson and Fabinho, along with the signing of van Dijk the Winter window before, transformed Liverpool from 4/5th place in the League to contenders, missing out by a point to an incredible City team.
If we could get similar type signings in calibre, then I don't see why we can't at least push to break that stranglehold that City and Liverpool have on the top 2 places. I feel we'll be comfortably ahead of Chelsea as we have 3 proven PL goalscorers in Rashford, Martial and Greenwood (early days but you can see he's a natural goalscorer), whereas Werner is a bit of an unknown (looks like a fantastic player, but Bundesliga is nowhere near the PL), along with the ageing Giroud and loss of Willian (jury is still out on Abraham for me). They also lack that WC quality we have with Bruno and Pogba in midfield.
I don't know why he has thrown Kane into the mix, I feel like the Harry Kane to United ship sailed about 3/4 years ago, and a part of me actually feels Ole wouldn't swap him for Martial in the current squad, the fluidity of the front 3 is one of the pivotal components in our style of play, and Harry Kane can't replicae also looks to be entering an early decline, has lost that degree of pace and physicality he had due to injuries.
Look, I'm not saying I agree with Savage at all, far from it. There are still too many question marks around this team. But given the current form of the squad, if we signed Sancho, Koulibaly and a top CDM in the mould of Ruben Neves then I would be very disappointed if we were only looking to cement a top 4 spot.
DDG
AWB Koulibaly Maguire Shaw
Pogba Neves Bruno
Sancho Martial Rashford/Greenwood
That team can 100% challenge for the league. So yeah, I get what Savage is saying, we're only 2/3 players off. Still, its early days to be making these kind of claims. Let's just secure CL football once more, and become relevant again.
We've been in the wilderness far too long, but for the first time in a long time, there's daylight ahead.
