As part 3 and the final post in the Team Development 2017-2020, I will be looking at the season 2019-2020. This will be the first year after Ancelotti. Ideally I would be hoping that we sign Julian Nagelsmann to succeed him.

[RED] first team

[ORANGE] backups (who will all be needed for all three competitions)

[BLUE] new players (including potential new players)

[GREY] youth players with the potential to get into the first team in the future

Season 2020/2012 (Nagelsmann)

Transfers

Potential leavers: Ribery, Lewandowski

Potential joiners: de Ligt, Stark, Arp

Potential joiners from Bayern youth squads: Götze, Tillman, Benko (although I think Benko, maybe even Tillman, may go on loan somewhere first)

Comments regarding Transfers

Saying that Lewandowski and Ribery would leave Bayern in one season might seem like madness right now, but hear me out. Ribery will have renewed his contract by one year twice and will be getting ready to retire with a host of young flexible players behind him ready to take the reigns to play for the new generation of manager.

Lewandowski on the other hand will still be in great form, but this would be a chance to move him on to make some money as well as (similar to Ribery) ushering in the next generation. By these two starting players leaving the Club, you are also generating a climate that takes some pressure off the new Manager and allows him to put his own stamp on a new team.

For this reason, I believe that the players joining this season will be largely developmental. I have put down Felix Götze, Timothy Tillman and Fabian Benko as joining the first team, but Tillman and Benko might stark by going on loans to gain experience at the top flight. Götze on the other hand may see playing time because I would assume that Nagelsmann would swap to playing with 3 center backs.

For this reason the other main signings I could see are Stark (currently Hertha Berlin) and de Ligt (currently Ajax). Stark has shown that he is strong going forward as well as solid at the back. He plays extremely calm (as can be observed currently at the U21 Euros) and doesn’t try to play too fancy or make many silly mistakes. de Ligt is also part of the new generation of CB with great passing and play building ability as well as defensively being strong.

To complete the attack I have also added Arp, who could move into more of a ST2 position with Wagner becoming third choice. He would be a great player for Nagelsmann to develop and may well be the next big striking talent in Germany.

This would leave Nagelsmann with a young, developmental squad, which, at the same time, has a lot of international experience and would without a doubt be challenging for the national double, if not the triple.

Comments to Tactics

The main change is the move from 4-2-3-1 to the 5-2-3, which at the same time can be a 3-4-3, a 3-5-2 or a 3-6-1. It is the new way of playing football, plays to a lot of strengths of the current 2017 squad, but even more to the strengths of this 2019 squad.

It allows Kimmich and Alaba to play a more attacking role and generally makes the game a lot faster. I wish Ancelotti were someone to try a lineup like this, but I doubt it will happen. The intensity with which this tactic allows you to play would mean that the backup players get a lot of action, and I believe this allows for better squad management. Who knows, by this time we might have more than 3 subs allowed per game.

I really hope that the development of the squad looks something like this, because it would give us a strong foundation to build an era from. Of course, in the years that follow, it is likely that Martinez, Boateng and Hummels leave or eventually retire, possibly even Thiago, Bernat, Wagner and Rudy, but there would be a young core of top players in their prime to take on the veteran responsibilites.