Guimaraes went to Lyon end of Jan for £18mil. He would have been a good player for us and at 22 comes in with very high potential.
I think we missed a trick not getting him and Gabriel in back then so we have a spine of Gabriel/Guimaraes/Richarlison which may be the Brazil spine in a season or two. With the virus situation in France and their president panicking about it we could have offered them £25-28mil which would be a nice quick profit for them.
Tonali is off to Inter i think from all the chatter. Fee of around £32-35mil i think which is a bargain. Youre effectively giving Ancelotti a 20 year old Gattuso. Hes tailor made for the premier league and would have been an immediate fan favourite, someone who fans would pay to watch.
Zakaria at 23 would come in as the dominant force. Arsenal brought in Wenger and he plucked out Vieira from Milans reserves but in this case Zakaria wouldnt be cheap as Gladback just got champions league. Would he prefer to come to the premier league though, under Ancelotti? Maybe.
Either way, for me lets say were spending £25mil on Doucoure and another £25mil on Allan. £50mil to give us a solid base for 3-4 seasons seems to be good business to me and allows us to focus on the rest of the squad. We will have Onyango and others potentially pushing into the squad over the next 2 seasons and perhaps bring in a couple of youngsters to develop/rotate with them.
For me though, I would have gone with one of Guimaraes, Tonali or Gabriel and brought in Gabriel.
It makes more sense to me for us to be building with that level of quality who make a huge impact on their own, have resale value and take the level of the team up.