Our attack is almost complete tbh. A Lewa renewal or low cost replacement along an extended loan/buy for Rashford and it is as good as anyone.
Any new signing there is luxurious. Yes, there is new levels to unlock in attack but it isn't a priority or a need. We are at 51 goals in La liga this year, no one is close in Spain and only Bayern is better in Europe. Anyone who think it is a priority is still stuck in the MSN/MVP eras and think we can reach those levels again, which is delusional.
Defense is where we need to allocate any resources we have to reinforce. The starting CB and fullback depth have been ignored for so long.
Tbh, there was never a moment under Flick where I was dissatisfied with how our attack runs. We are dependent on Raphinha, since apart from Raphinha, the other players are on the softer technical side, so we need his fighting spirit and power in more difficult moments, as Rashford is fast and somewhat strong physically, but is not really a fighter or a leader.
Attack is fine and was fine for some years already. The issue for me is defense, always was for years, and this included the keeper and the DM position. We only fixed the keeper in 3-4 years and that's too little movement on the defensive end. It was treated as secondary or tertiary objective, but it has become painfully obvious that the defense lets down the overall team. Some of it can be attributed to Flick's style, but not all of it, some of the issue lie with the substandard defenders compared to other compartments. We are doing pretty damn well on the wings and in attacking midfield all things considered.
Issue is, because the defense is poor, there's very little we can do in terms of raising funds through selling players. Which is why I'd be open to listen to offers for both De Jong and Kounde. They're the only two defensive players we have on paper who are somewhat highly rated. The rest are not that good or not that special, and it is explainable for me why Kounde and De Jong are the only two players from midfield down who regularly play in highly rated NTs as starters.
De Jong himself is not as good as people believe. There's very little interest for him from top tier teams, it was not even a question of being in a position to sell him for a big fee. There was that interest from United mainly due to ETH who was his former manager and had a thing for him, but De Jong is generally not a player that can bring a big fee for us. Quite tricky to integrate in a midfield. Not gifted enough attacking-wise to be a box-to-box, not strong enough defensively to be a real DM. Somewhat of a luxury player that is and odd fit, serious qualities in some aspects, but he never was able to fix his weaker areas in many years. Good on the eye, but not an important structural piece for our midfield I think, and he's not young anymore. De Jong hasn't even got very close to the level of a Rakitic for us. Quite disappointed in him. Was expected to be a differential midfield transforming player, but just settled in his comfort zone, played on those terms, and never left it.
Both De Jong and Kounde frankly. Expected more leadership, but they are just regular good players like many are. Would be able to upgrade both, but while they are rated, I doubt they are rated at such big sums to move them on. Somewhat players of the associative type, players who would carry their weight when paired with better ones, but not the key pieces in their compartments to really make a jump of quality structurally on those compartments as a whole.
