Hard to know mate, we’d be guessing on Benitez and his preferences. He’s talked about wingers as opposed to inside forwards, like Carlo so maybe he want width from wingers as opposed to fullbacks. As I read it we have needs and preferences.
My take would be we have a limited budget. The biggest need at present is right full. I’d suggest we’re haggling for Dumfries or Aaron’s. What Benitez wants will be a factor to. That’s a need, but we’re trying to make the budget stretch. We can compete with Inter for Dumfries financially may be not on profile. Maybe the deal needs smoking out and the lad needs to decide on profile or money. We should be in there with the lad making a choice, unles another PL comes in. Aarons will go for silly money, so I’d suggest unles we have a deal out lined up we might cut our cloth unless we get money in.
I think we like McNeill, he’s a preference, I think we are trying to do both the deal above and this on a budget. I think it’s tricky trying to do both on our budget, hence all the delays waiting and why we won’t see anything happen until later in the window. We might not get both deals as we could be priced out. Burnley will look for good money and the juice might not be worth the squeeze.
I think we will look for a 10, James could go, Gylfi might not be available, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Counthino on loan with an option later in the window - that would be a preference too.
Of course that just as the crow flies, if we do any deals out that could flip, Kean going to PSG could turno boost some of that - but then we need a support striker too.
All the while we’re saving wages on Walcott, Bolaise, Besic and Bernard, until later in the window.