Regarding Guarin, I think replacing him is potentially more tricky than we might realise. Selling him is one thing. As I discussed with Fitzy outside of the forum recently, we've made things very difficult for ourselves with Guarin. Basically we've turned this ultra-turd into a top player for a top club, at least within Guarin's deluded mind. Now, he thinks clubs like Galatasaray are far beneath his level, while of course, real top clubs would never buy Guarin because as mentioned, he's a fucking mega-shit, and top clubs generally do not buy mega-shits.
Anyway, if we were to hypothesise that Juventus were stupid enough to buy Guarin off us, then we need to be careful with the choice of player he is replaced with, or how the squad is set up to deal with his absence. Basically, for all the shit that he is, Guarin is still the only midfielder we have who is capable of scoring and assisting on his own. I would prefer Brozovic over Guarin every single day of the year but Brozovic is not as direct as Guarin, and his goals do not come from individualism so much as the finishing touch to team moves. I base this on his few goals for us, and his goals for Croatia and Dinamo, and simply the way he is as a footballer. The counter-argument is that as we improve and grow as a team and as a squad, we may not require momentary individual brilliance to get goals or assists for us a la Guarin. But let's be utterly realistic for a second here. Despite how well we're doing in the table and despite how loudly bandiera is going to be shouted down, Mancini has still provided next to no evidence that he, as a coach, is coming up with any attacking solutions to help the team score goals. As I said in the Genoa thread, it's basically been Ljajic, Perisic and Jovetic just improvising and making shit up as they go along, but having the natural talent and previously acquired-coaching, to do so. Thank fuck Ljajic is in some seriously good form right now.
Ultimately, I do not think any drastic 'improvement' in teamplay is going to even happen, or let alone make up for our need of a goal-scoring, or otherwise, highly influential, offensive midfielder a la Vidal or Pogba. I understand that not every team needs a Vidal or Pogba to succeed, and I would like to think that Kondogbia could fill this role to an extent, but it's still early days and he needs to find consistency before we expect him to lead the midfield. As I've mentioned regarding him in the past, I see Brozovic more as a really solid compliment to creative and technical midfielders, not so much as the leader himself, but I'd like to see those two playing together regularly. Sadly, this seems highly unlikely as we seem to have to play one of Medel or Melo. Perhaps if we play something like Medel/Melo, Brozovic, Kondogbia, Ljajic, Perisic, Jovetic... Whatever, that's another debate for later.
Anyway. I suspect that if Guarin goes, we really do need a midfielder who is a genuine goal threat. This is highly ironic, as I think Hernanes would have done a decent job in this role. Anyway, something to think about.
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