I think for better or worse, we'll be entering the Haaland and/or Kane sweepstakes next season. If either don't come off then I think someone like Vlahovic at Fiorentina could be worth a gamble. Or, if we want to go down the Prem-proven route, someone like Ings could come in and be a squad player. I think our need for a striker is not because of a lack of quality per se, but a lack of numbers. Greenwood may ultimately be that man, or Martial may even have a renaissance after a tough season last year, but if one/both of them go down, then we're severely lacking. My personal preference would be for Kane, as his age profile would suit a nice and easy transition for Greenwood, but Haaland's history with Ole and Sancho can't be discounted either.
Re the squad as a whole, I do agree with almost everything you say to an extent. I do think we'll be much improved, but a title challenge is that DM away for me, still. The most important thing in football is that first pass out of defence and that link between defence and attack. Unfortunately, and while I do really like both Fred and McTominay, they just aren't at that required standard. It's not just about protecting the defence, it's about setting the tempo of the game and breaking the lines of the opposition and giving those stellar attackers as much of the ball as possible. McFred collectively do a decent-good job of protecting the defence but in possession, their game lacks penetration. That's not their fault, and both players would be much better individually if they were paired with a DM. I respect them both for stepping up and doing a job for the team, but I think it's pretty clear that no one at the club sees them as the solution long-term, or that we will be in the position of winning the biggest competitions with both of them in the engine room.
For me, I think the following is achievable for us:
League: 80-84 points, which should be good for Top 4 and a strong showing against the rest (but with the strength of Chelsea and City, and Liverpool getting their best player back, I genuinely don't know where in the Top 4 it would place us)
FA and EFL Cups: go as far as possible and win or both of them
CL: QF is about par, SF if we get a good draw
A good DM sees us pushing past 85 points and seriously stretching the 90 points mark, and would get us one, to two places better in the league irrespective of who is in front of us.
I think what we have to realise is that a ball hasn't been kicked yet and we only have to look at Chelsea who had an even better window than ours now, last year: Werner, Havertz, Silva, Mendy, Chilwell, Ziyech gave them more quality and strength in depth collectively than Sancho and Varane have given us. Yet, they weren't great in the league and we comfortably finished ahead of them despite not really improving our starting XI from the season before.
If we were to challenge this season it wouldn't be a surprise, but I wouldn't necessarily bank on us winning it while City and Chelsea have the advantages they have in terms of their squad depth.
