I’m starting to wonder if we’re not that bothered.
Bear with me.
We will likely play 4-3-3.
That requires just one starting striker. There’s no deep lying striker in that set up where you can fudge in another centre forward like you can with 4-2-3-1.
I think this will happen:
1. We’ll start with the plan of Hamer-Peck- O’Hare behind Barry-Campbell-Brooks.
2. Soumaré will arrive but will be earmarked as a squad player. Caceres will be a back up and then Davies will take the other spot prior to Arblaster returning. Back up forwards for week 1 would be Oné, Cannon and Ukaki.
3. Everton, having just completed the move for Dewsbury-Hall will let us have Iroegbunam.
4. Iroegbunam will become a bona fide starter. That creates a quandary. So we’ll move Peck to one side and Hamer to the other. That leaves O’Hare as a spare.
5. O’Hare will then end up competing with Brooks and Barry for the wide berth. This will mean that Oné has to compete just as much for a striker role. We will retain Marsh as 4th striker who can play in a few spots.
6. We won’t see value anymore in paying if money for a 3rd choice striker, knowing that Cannon, Oné, Marsh and Barry can all play there instead of Campbell and it’s only one spot. We also have Caceres and Ukaki remember who can both operate wide if we need to shove one of the aforementioned down the middle.
Meanwhile we spend more time on defence and bring in this Korean lad with the Moore money on far less wages plus whatever we saved on Grbic.
Then if Anel goes we replace him.
Maybe I’m wrong but it’s hard to recruit when the offer is of being behind your first choice, then your second choice is someone you spent 10m on and your current 3rd choice is a young lad you’re keen to get games to.
What player can you target for that role? How much budget would you seriously allocate and what sort of player would fancy that sort of gig?