Suarez is 34 and if somehow we bring lautaro, and suarez still starts ahead of him then we deserve to sink like manutd or milan.
It's one thing what I wish/think we should do and another what I believe will happen knowing how this club de amigos is operating over the last few years.
I agree that Suarez should be phased out of the club (preferably leaving to MLS before we bring Lautaro) but I just don't see it happening regardless of who we'll buy to "replace" him. Maybe he'll accept to be rotated more and not play full 90 minutes against lower table teams when we're already up by 2 or 3 goals so being more fresh will help him and the team to perform better in important games which I believe he'll still start. So hopefully giving more rest to Suarez is the most positive thing I believe Lautaro will bring to the team next season but we shouldn't spend 100m on a player to rotate him with another 100m player and play both of them out of position. I really hope to be wrong about this but I don't think I am.
Our team is pretty stacked with forwards but we dont have a proper st besides suarez(34).
I don't see Lautaro as a proper striker who would score 30+ goals either.
Our mf is pretty stacked but we dont have a proper cam and/or another cm, or like most of the forum see messi as the player in that role we lack one more mf of similar mould to de jong but i think thats a wrong approach on so many levels.
De jong de jong2
Trincao messi griez
Suarez
That line up screams of non posession, slow pace wannabe counter attacking football which we dont play and cant play, defense vulnerable.
De jong de jong2
Trincao messi dembele
Lautaro
Lineup full of if's, again no posession, counter attacking yes but defensive vulnerable as fuck.
As I've said many times we need a midfield destroyer/ball-winning midfielder like Kante but preferably younger. That's why I was pushing for Camavinga (yeah, I know he's still pretty raw but I don't expect we'll win much until this old guard is gone and Camavinga-FDJ could be key players of post-Messi team which we should start to build) but sadly don't think it will happen. We should look for similar alternatives though. Busi is too old/slow and Arthur is not good defensively and with fitness issues.
Messi needs to stay at final third with ocassional droping back to create when we are against a bunker to discomfort enemy lines.
We need to minimize messi's output on our mf, with or without the ball and let him do his thing on wing or wherever he wants to be in final third.
People are often saying Messi would stay upfront more if we'd have a better midfield which would give him the ball. This could be true in some extent but I think he just "enjoys" his current role of creating chances/assisting much more than scoring and he'll always prefer to drop back so getting another player who likes to do the same won't really work as long as Messi is here.
My opinion is that with messi still around we need to play
442
433
343
We've played 4-4-2 a lot over the last few years to accomodate Messi and Suarez in the lineup. Even this season when both were healthy and we've played 4-3-3 on paper it was in reality more of a 4-4-2 with Griezmann dropping back as a LM. 4-4-2 is probably still the best system if we want to keep Messi and Suarez in the lineup but it's far from ideal for the rest of the team. We don't have midfielders nor fullbacks to play 4-4-2 so instead of changing the rest of the team we just shouldn't play them together as much anymore. Suarez is not the only one who should play less, Messi should as well to keep him fresher so with Lautaro incoming we should look for possible combinations with just one of Messi and Suarez in the lineup.
4-4-2 diamond with Messi behind two of Lautaro/Griezmann/Suarez is another option but everything would go through the middle too much.
4-3-3 again won't work because Messi is our RW on paper but he doesn't play on the wings anymore so we don't have any width when he drops in midfield and our RB is isolated. And neither Semedo nor Roberto (though as a born midfielder he's a bit better at this) can't create attacks on their own like Alves did. They need a winger in front of them and this is not possible in a 4-3-3 with Messi.
I've thought about using 3-4-3/3-5-2 when we hired Setien. He has used that system at Betis and while they were great at keeping possession which people here would like to see they were mostly also steril offensively not creating much chances. With Messi we would obviously create more but I think we would again be too dependant on him.
Another problem is we just don't have enough quality CBs to play that system. Umtiti can't seriously be counted on to play more than 3 games before getting injured so we should get a starting quality CB (which we won't have money for), bring back Todibo (who we want to sell) and we would still be short of another CB to have more depth. Sure, Busi or FDJ could play there if needed but then they would be missed in midfield. So if we'd plan to play with three at the back regularly we shouldn't go into the season with just 4 CBs. I'm also not really sure if Pique and Lenglet would work in 3-4-3 as neither of them is fast enough to keep up with opponents's wingers when they would need to cover for wingbacks (Alba and whoever would play on the right) going forward with less defensive responsibilites they have now.
So I think 4-2-3-1 would be the best formation but to make it work good we should get a good midfielder to pair with FDJ instead of buying Lautaro. FDJ-Busi/Arthur won't work in 4-2-3-1 regardless of who we put in front of them. For me a lineup with FDJ-a strong ball-winning midfielder; Griezmann/Fati-Messi-Trincao/Braithwaite; Suarez/Griezmann would look better than FDJ-Busi-Arthur and Griezmann/Lautaro alongside Messi and Suarez upfront in whatever formation we'll use to get them on the field.
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