There is no guarantee that those 2 players for 250 Million will pan out either. Coutinho and Griezmann are marvellous players but Coutinho is way too inconsistent and injury prone for that kind of price tag. I'm more sure of Griezmann but again he doesn't address our lack of quality wingers which is essential to our style of play.
Unfortunately, we're stuck with Suarez due to the long term nature of his contract and his wages. So how do you fit Messi, Suarez, Dembele, Coutinho and Griezmann into a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 starting 11 without hindering your defensive capabilities. I'm not a fan of the 4-2-3-1 at the best of times due to the absence of a third central midfielder and the potential defensive problems it possesses, but playing any of those upfront in such a system even with Busquets and another world class central midfielder is a recipe for disaster.
Suarez has to go simple as that, I'm sure we could ship him off to Liverpool as a part of the deal with Coutinho to lower his price by around 50m. Of course there is no guarantee any player works out, they could break their leg in the first match or not fit into the system for some inexplicable reason and with the inflated prices in today's market it makes one think whether these mega money transfers are worth it at all, but it's a risk we have to take to keep the club moving forward as the likes of Messi, Iniesta and clearly Suarez start to fade.
Coutinho with all his issues is a significant upgrade over anything we currently have in midfield and is 150m probably too much for him? Sure, but that's just they way the market's gone over the last year as a result of the Neymar deal; the price for any half decent player has sky rocketed and I don't think there are many other great midfielders that clubs are willing to sell, whereas LFC should let Coutinho go this year. Griezmann played as a winger in his time at La Real and is quite comfortable there. I also don't think he'd be playing as an out and out winger like Neymar did and hug the touchline, but as an inside forward rather ala Villa/Henry.
Ideally our lineup for next season would be something like this:
Griezmann-Messi-Dembele
Coutinho-Busquets-Roberto
Alba-Umtiti-Pique-Semedo
Ter Stegen
I feel Roberto's earned the right to be given the opportunity to be played as a midfielder and he would be a nice complimentary piece in the starting XI, not every starter has to be a superstar to have collective success.
Messi has only 2-3 or years of high level football left and we can't afford to let the talents and brilliance of an once in a lifetime player go to waste, we need to spend big, get the players we need in and give him and this core one last shot at the CL. We don't have time to be trying to implement youngsters in the team with so little of prime Messi left, we need to get world class players and go for it.
