If we have any money to spend, I would prefer we first buy a proper LWB. Maybe Gosens. That will have the biggest impact on our starting XI quality, and this position should be priority for upgrade.
If we have money left over, I would prefer a midfielder over vice-Lukaku. Vidal ain't reliable anymore (lets see how he does when he comes back), while Sensi is never fit. So we don't have quality rotation for our 3 starting midfielders. For our 2 starting strikers, at least we have Sanchez. So I would rather spend 30m on Locatelli than Muriel.
If the above two issues are somehow sorted and in the unlikely event we still have money to spend, then Muriel could be a decent option for 30m. But there are also rumours that Belotti is forcing his way out of Torino this summer and could be available for as low as 35m. Between the two, I would prefer Belotti.
I would prefer another midfielder like
Locatelli even over
Gosens, I'd rather have Perišić and Dimarco on LWB next season than what we have for rotation in midfield. Darmian can also easily cover the position and D'Ambrosio doesn't offer much going forward (other than clutch headers) but is solid defensively. While in midfield other than the starters we have basically nothing.
Basically for WBs we would have Hakimi, Perišić, Dimarco, Darmian and D'Ambrosio. That's 1 top player, 2 pretty good ones, 1 good enough and 1 serviceable for 2 positions, 5 for 2 in total.
On the other hand in midfield, while it didn't look that bad on paper at the start of the season, we only really have 3 players (Brozović, Eriksen and Barella) for 3 positions.
Because even though I always knew Vidal was a risk It thought that he at least would give us at least one good season, instead he has been atrocious and who knows if he can even recover to be anything close to his top form given his age.
Then there's Sensi, who has been injured consistently for one and half season now, so clearly we can't depend on him at all.
About the other two, if we seriously want to compete both in Serie A and in the CL, Gagliardini and Vecino are only good enough at best to be our 6th or 7th choice midfielder.
So in the end even if Gosens would give a notable jump in quality to our starting eleven, overall our midfield needs reinforcement a lot more than the wings, because yes our starting midfield is one of the best in the league but if one of our starters is missing the quality drops of a cliff.
To put in perspective, at least given what we have seem this season, D'Ambrosio gives us a better output as WB, and he would be the third backup there, than any of the would be first backup (Vidal, Gagliardini and Vecino) has given us in midfield.
In fact, I would say we need to get not one but two midfielders, one that is at least close to the level of our starters (
Locatelli) and one that's at least solid or better.
This next mercato should in order of importance: MF > LWB >>> MF = FW > CB.
It all depends on what is our budget, but ideally I would like for it to be something like this:
Locatelli (€35-40M) >
Gosens (€40-50M) /
Dimarco (€6-10M) >>>
Pellegrini (€30M) /
de Paul (€40-50M) =
M. Barrow (€30M) /
Muriel (€30M) /
Nzola (€15-20M) >
Tomiyasu (€25M)
I don't actually think we need to be looking for a GK unless we're looking to directly replace Handanovic, looking to spend €30-40M for someone like
Musso to rotate him with Handa only to see if he's capable of eventually replacing him is fucking retarded, at least for next season, maybe the season after that when we've covered our gaping holes in the squad we could look to do something like that. Ionut Radu is good enough backup for Handa, though we should have played him in Coppa (don't know know what's wrong with Conte).
If we were looking to directly replace Handanovic directly next season there is only two options and both would come as free agents:
Donnarumma who still hasn't renewed with Milan but at the end probably will and
Alexander Nübel who apparently could break his Bayern Munich contract if he doesn't play at least 10 matches this season (he's at 3).
For defense, our starters are top class, then Ranocchia has proven himself to be an excellent backup for de Vrij, if it's between
Maksimović and Ranocchia I'd rather just keep the Italian. There is actually another option, though it is a gamble:
Vanheusden who we apparently are obligated to redeem anyway, he was actually doing pretty good at Belgium, good enough to be the captain of Standard Liège at 21 years old, but he's carrying two cruciate ligament ruptures now, but it must be said that he came back strong from the first one, so maybe he can do it again.
But for SCB we only really have D'Ambrosio and Darmian at a stretch (should only be 7th choice at CB). So for those positions we probably need another player, I think that player should be
Tomiyasu, he has all the characteristics to play that position (on both sides since he's ambidextrous), he'll be coming of two pretty good seasons in Serie A, only 22 years old, and has all to become a top player, sadly Bologna also really rates him so he's not gonna be cheap. The cheap option would be of course bringing back
Pirola, but knowing Conte he's never gonna play, so better to loan him or just sell him to Monza to raise funds.
In midfield
Locatelli is a must IMO, the first player we should get not matter what, then depending on the budget we either get
Gosens or
Dimarco.
Kostic is a good alternative to
Gosens. Then there is the luxury option, that maybe it's not that much of a luxury unless you want (p.d. you don't) the likes of Sensi / Vidal / Gagliardini as 5th choice, there's of course the rather expensive option of
de Paul and then there is
Lorenzo Pellegrini who apparently has a €30M release clause, but it must be said he's Roman, Romanista, their youth product and their fucking captain, so release clause or not, pretty fucking hard to get.
When it comes to forwards my dream would be
Musa Barrow, he's at 6 goals and 9 assists this season in Serie A, 9 and 5 in the last one and that's at 22 years old, already a pretty good player, potential to be a top forward, can be a backup for both Lukaku and Lautaro and for the rumored €30M I think it's actually kinda cheap.
Muriel is another good option but he's a 30 years old that has struggled with weight and form issues all his career, it's true that at times he can be unplayable but I don't know if he can do it consistently at Inter.
I just realized that this is the Forwards thread not the Mercato one and the post ended going a lot longer than I expected, but it is indeed responding to the post I quoted, so I'm leaving it here but also reposting it to the Mercato thread so the not Forwards discussion can continue there and not here.