I genuinely don't even know what we need in CM. All I know is that I've seen entirely wayyy too many matches with Allan and Doucoure where we were ripped wide open by opposing teams. We kind of need both someone who can break up play regularly and DEFINITELY needs a CM who can move with the ball and, shockingly, pass forward.
What's completely laughable are those who say, hopefully jokingly, that Gylfi fn Sigurdsson could do a job in the middle.
Our results with Allan and Douc both playing: W8, D2, L4.
Our results with at least one of them missing: W8, D5, L7
But that's not your main point, and I realise that.
If you look at the central midfield personnel currently employed by the club, we don't have enough players who are up to the standard of even being the third-best player in a midfield trio. Allan and Doucs the best players in the group so get in by default when fit, but neither is a natural 6. In that scenario I would be looking to:
a) Sign a 6 who is ready to go from day one. Make the weakest position in our midfield the strongest, and the whole midfield is improved straight away. This will give us time (based on how long Allan can continue performing to a decent level) to bring a younger player through to play box-to-box.
b) Sign a box-to-box type who is good enough to start whenever one of Allan or Doucs needs a rest, AND is young enough (and shows all the promise) to improve over the next 12 months and surpass Allan and/or Doucs.
c) Retain Davies as the backup 6. If he kicks on and develops, great. If not, he provides cover from the bench until we sell him in summer 2022.
d) Assess Gbamin's recovery. If he makes the grade, he can be the backup 6. However if he doesn't recover (as I fear is more likely) then we sell in summer 2022
e) Sell Delph and Gomes ASAP. Neither are worth their wages. They are currently 4th and 5th choice, and if we bring in two central players as outlined above they will become 6th and 7th choice.
The 6 I want is Kalvin Phillips from Leeds, but the pricing would probably rule him out. Someone like Scott McTominay would be worth a look but again the pricing makes it tough. I don't watch enough overseas football to talk about the likes of Camavinga, Soumare, Gravenberch, Guimaraes, Kamara and so forth.