Agreed, getting rid of Varane, Maguire and maybe Evans for Tosin, Braithwaite and Todibo would be an upgrade in speed, ball playing ability and availability. Physicality wise, probably on par, experience wise, a downgrade.
Successful squads aren't great on the pitch but off the pitch as well. Take SAF's squads as an example. They were basically made up of 3 types of players. One could transition from one section to another of course.
A- the established players. I am referring to the likes of Stam, RVN, Cantona etc. These were usually the players that were paid the most salary wise. They also carried the most responsibility as well.
B- the promising talent. The established players were the most paid but this is the tier SAF would usually break the bank for. I am referring to the likes of Rio, Rooney, Ronaldo, Nani and Anderson ie young players that many thought (and they were sort of right) we've paid over the odds for.
C- The squad players. These were made of a mix of three players
- C1- Older players who had since transitioned from established to squad players, they still had their uses and were ready to accept lower salaries and/or game play (later years Choccy for example)
- C2- talent from the academy (OShea, Phil Nev, Wes Brown etc)
- C3 - players bought on the cheap. Some were surprisingly impressive (ex Ole, Van Del Gouw) but most did the job (ex Fortune) and we had some duds as well (Cruyff, Djemba Djemba and Kleberson for example)
SAF was skint on C, so he could spend ridiculously on B and he used the salaries given to A as a incentive for Bs to become As. SAF might have mellowed in time but he was incredibly defensive of that system. Phil Neville for example got a huge pay rise after he did fairly well as DM (he killed Vieira). When things didn't worked exactly the way SAF expected he sold him off to Everton leaving the guy and his missus in tears. Such system was necessary to keep control over the finances which allowed United to facilitate sales and therefore be able to spend big in what matters the most ie top tier young talent.
That's what INEOS are trying to do. They are getting top tier appointments in terms of bargain buys/youth talent (WIlcox, Ashworth etc) while concurrently getting rid of players whose worth on the pitch isn't worth the salary they are getting. Take Maguire as an example. He's on nearly 10m a year. Eriksen is on nearly 8m a year while Lindelof is on 6m+ a year. In comparision Tosin is on 2m+ a year, Todibo is on 1m+ a year, Thuram is on 800k+ and Bard is on 200k a year. If we get rid of Maguire and we buy all those players on double their salary then we would still benefit us salary wise. Now imagine if we add the rest including guys like Martial (13m a year) and Shaw (nearly 8m a year) who are barely ever available.
Tosin might surprise us like that 27 year old CB we brought from Besiktas did or he might be a squad player level in the same way Evans did this season. Either way he'll benefit us as he'll help us fill the homegrown quota and he'll allow us to get rid of players on silly salaries most of whom will feck off on a free next year if we let them. Even if he turns out to be a dud then assuming we give him a realistic salary then it wouldn't be tragic either. That's because we'll be able to find buyers for him just as we did with Djemba Djemba who was bought for 3.5m and was sold for 1.5m thus costing us the access of just 2m