Opinion: FC Bayern must target Eintracht Frankfurt’s André Silva’s this transfer window

Following the disappointment of this season’s UEFA Champions League campaign which saw Bayern Munich fall 3-3 on aggregate to Paris Saint-Germain due to a combination of injuries to key players and a lack of depth, major flaws appeared in the Bavarian Side.

One of those flaws was that — outside of their Polish Talisman Robert Lewandowski — Bayern does not have a pure scorer on the roster and it showed when perineal backup Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting provided two of those three goals. Thomas Müller, Kingsley Coman, and Leroy Sané are first and foremost creators with a combined 34 assists between the three of them. Serge Gnabry, who is viewed as the closest thing to a scorer has been wildly inconsistent this season with nine goals to his name in 23 Bundesliga games and no goals in the Champions League. Yet, a certain Portuguese forward from Eintracht Frankfurt could be available.

With rumors his release clause being €30m that were ultimately disproved, this got the gears in my head moving about how Silva could instantly impact FC Bayern Munich.

At just 25-years-old, André Silva is currently currently second in the Bundesliga with 23 goals on the year, contributing a further four assists. Adding Silva would give Bayern a proven and clinical finisher behind Robert Lewandowski and would not only allow for the providers to not need to focus as much as pure scoring, but also add talented depth should injuries strike Bayern.

Now the question must be, how often does he play and when does he play? Well, that would depend highly on whether or not the rumors surrounding Hansi Flick and Julian Nagelsmann are true. If Hansi Flick remains, Silva can play either as rotational piece behind Lewandowski, similar to Müller’s role or as a secondary striker in a varied 4-4-2 set up which would see the wide midfielders be a combination of Coman, Gnabry, & Sané, as seen below.

In this structure, we open up some of the midfield with the two striker formation, but the creative gameplay of Leon Goretzka as a box to box midfielder and Sane as a creative outlet makes this unorthodox formation somewhat viable. Mind you, given the talent of Coman, Gnabry, Goretzka and Sané, depending the opponent those players can and should rotate. But for this instance, Goretzka has proven to be the most necessary player on the left:

However, Silva’s importance goes up if Julian Nagelsmann becomes the next FC Bayern coach. Nagelsmann is known for running with a overloaded midfield and a back three and in this circumstance, one of the regulars in defense would be replace by Silva up top. In this instance, this is what the lineup would look like if I was running Nagelsmann system with André Silva:

Lewandowski acts as the primary supporter while Silva remains up top to provide an outlet. Müller sits forward as well to allow him his typical Raumdeuter gameplay. The edge players, in this case Sané and, sit back a bit further to allow outlets to the edge and play in. Kimmich remains as the holding pivot between the back three and the remainder of the midfield. My preference in a back three is Davies, Hernandez and Upamecano as 1. they offer the necessary speed and 2. Süle’s inconsistencies with Hernandez finally establishing himself as the €80m defender makes him a must start with the departures of David Alaba and Jeróme Boateng.

While Bayern did just drop nearly €50 million Dayot Upamacano, and rightfully so, FC Bayern should focus heavily on André Silva as their next target. He is primarily a forward but has shown he can play in an advance midfielder role similar to Leon Goretzka and Thomas Müller and is an elite goal scorer, as shown by his heatmap this season:

Sofascore, https://www.sofascore.com/player/andre-silva/190159

There are other needs Bayern needs, but whether or not Flick or Nagelsmann is the Bayern coach come next season, I believe André Silva is a necessity.