I appreciate your thoughts, but I'm not buying Modric and Comotto as the answer to RCM, while trying to get back into the CL, and potentially look to compete in SA and Europe?
RLC, Fofana and Musah can all go, I'm not dying on a Musah hill lol... Ricci for rotation and lists, sure, I'll not lose any sleep either way.
For me we need a starting quality CM, let Modric wind down his playing career, and offer a you hater good minutes as well.
We can hope Jashari explodes... But that's a big IF currently.
Rabiot, Then one from Jashari, Modric, Ricci and Comotto, I'm just not confident that's enough.
A lot really depends on sales. Right now it's hypothetical and steeped in narratives?
The idea of starting ChuK, Modric and relying on Nkunku and Pulisic scares the shit out of me... More so if RLC and Fofana are back up, while Salad plays every minute because we have no real cover there?
Again, holes upon holes, but...
I get that, and I think this is basically where the whole "trust the youth" discussion becomes difficult in practice.
Because yes, if you look at Modric + Comotto purely from a risk-management perspective, of course signing another starting-quality CM is safer. I wouldn't even argue against that. But then where does Comotto actually play?
If we sign a starting-quality RCM, Modric becomes his backup and Comotto becomes third choice. That's basically game over for meaningful minutes unless we have an injury crisis. And then we're back to exactly what we were discussing before: we love the idea of giving youngsters a pathway until that pathway requires us to accept some actual risk.
I'm willing to take that risk with Comotto.
Maybe I'll look like an idiot in six months and he'll prove nowhere near ready.

But Modric isn't some random veteran either. Even at his age, I'd trust him to start plenty of games, while gradually shifting more and more minutes towards Comotto if he develops the way I hope he will.
And I think we have to pick our battles in the mercato too. Because I completely agree with you about the holes. That's actually why I'd rather spend serious money elsewhere. Give me another ball-playing CB, a proper RAM and a starting-quality wingback before another CM. Those are much bigger holes to me because I don't see internal solutions there that I particularly trust.
RCM is different because I do see one: Comotto. Same with Jashari. Sure, him exploding under Amorim is an IF. But almost every young player's development is an IF. At some point Milan spent serious money on him because of what he showed at Brugge. Now we're finally playing a system and role that should resemble what made him so good there in the first place. I'd rather find out whether that player is actually in there than immediately put another body in front of him.
And yeah, if we're starting Chukwueze at wingback while Saelemaekers has to play 55 games because there's nobody behind him, I'll be shitting myself right next to you.

That's exactly why those positions are higher priorities for me.
I guess my approach would be: don't try to eliminate every single risk in the squad. Fix the positions where we genuinely don't have convincing answers and deliberately accept some risk where we have talented young players who might become those answers.
Otherwise we'll spend another 100M filling "holes upon holes" and then wonder why Comotto, Camarda and the next Liberali are looking elsewhere for minutes.