The troubling transfer dilemmas still facing Chelsea, Newcastle and Spurs as new season nears

Somehow, we’re only two weeks away from the start of a brand new Premier League season. Quite how that’s possible is open for debate, given that it feels like we’ve barely started the transfer window, but the campaign really will get underway at Turf Moor a fortnight on Friday and that means that quite a few teams have very little time to make some very substantial signings before the curtain drops.

With that in mind, let’s look at a few of the dilemmas facing some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs and what they need to do to make sure they’re in good shape for the start of another season.

Chelsea’s midfield

The plan had been pretty straightforward – sell Conor Gallagher, use the funds raised to buy Moisés Caicedo, profit. On the pitch, anyway, but then financial profit has been pretty elusive for the new owners so far anyway.

Unfortunately for new manager Mauricio Pochettino, everything has stalled out at a crucial stage – West Ham United are reportedly uncertain about increasing their initial £40m bid for Gallagher, and Chelsea’s opening bid for Caicedo fell something like £30m below Brighton & Hove Albion’s expectations. That leaves the threadbare midfield in limbo.

It doesn’t help that West Ham have other midfield targets lined up, with a bid for James Ward-Prowse reportedly made on Wednesday. Pochettino has stated that the occasional England midfielder remains in his plans, but that may simply imply that nobody else has entered the bidding. Chelsea have also fallen Liverpool and Arsenal in the bidding for Roméo Lavia, another possible replacement for the departed N’Golo Kanté.

With Kanté and Mateo Kovačić gone, the Pensioners desperately need some midfield mettle alongside Enzo Férnandez – especially if they can’t find a direct replacement for Mason Mount. There are many different ways Chelsea could set up their midfield, but as it stands they aren’t fully equipped for any of them.

Some good news could be coming in the form of Ajax midfielder Mohammed Kudus, but for all his undoubted dynamism he is neither a holding midfielder nor a creative outlet, but rather another attacking number ten option to compete with new signing Christopher Nkunku or on the wide right. Nkunku’s pre-season form which implies that the real priority is a defensive midfielder. On that basis, Clearlake Capital badly need to empty their pockets once more for Caicedo, and if that really doesn’t work they need to find a new target and fast.

That could be Lavia, or it could be someone like Marseille’s Valentin Rongier – one of the best performing defensive midfielders in Europe last season – but they need to sort it out quickly, especially with a tricky opening tie against Liverpool in prospect. Liverpool’s new-look midfield could run riot if Chelsea are a man short of a first-rate double pivot on the opening day.

Newcastle United’s creative nexus

A team with no need to worry about the base of their midfield, Newcastle have Bruno Guimarães, Joelinton and now record signing Sandro Tonali lined up and ready to go – but there’s still one conspicuous gap in their squad. A creative number ten.

Having been linked with everyone from James Maddison to Mason Mount to Neymar over the early stages of the summer, it remains somewhat surprising that Eddie Howe still hasn’t found that attacking orchestrator who can link all that midfield quality with their bustling front line – and it may be the case that one isn’t coming.

Since the arrival of Harvey Barnes, the Newcastle rumour mill has gone pretty quiet. There had been some rather tenuous suggestions that they were in for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, which never sounded likely and looks even less plausible with Barnes on the books, but apart from that reports have focused on players like Tino Livramento. If Newcastle are still in the market for an attacking midfielder, they are keeping a very firm lid on it – but the chances are they’ve simply missed out on the players they were after.

That leaves two options – get the scouts on the go immediately to find an alternative, or settle for what they have. The arrival of Barnes makes a three-forward formation almost compulsory, so the latter scenario means leaning on Bruno to shuttle between the lines and work in a more forward-thinking role than he did last year, playing ahead of Tonali and Joelinton. That could easily work well, and at least avoids a risky panic buy of someone further down the shopping list.

As for the former? Well, most of the best number tens on the market have frankly sorted themselves out already. They could take a punt on Gabri Veiga of Celta Vigo, but Chelsea, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain are all in the market for him. They could take another look at Inter Milan’s Niccolò Barella, but the market went cold on him because of the huge asking price slapped on his signature. Or they could take a punt on a younger talent like Udinese’s Lazar Samardžić, who has the numbers behind him but not the experience. There are still options out there – but it could be best for Howe to simply make do with what he has for now.

Tottenham Hotspur’s striker situation

With every passing day it looks more and more likely that England captain Harry Kane will be leaving Spurs for Bayern Munich – and that creates a huge problem for Ange Postecoglou and for Daniel Levy, as if the indictment of the club’s owner Joe Lewis for insider trading wasn’t headache enough.

Assuming Kane can’t be persuaded to pen a new contract, or at least assuming he doesn’t simply decide to hang around for another season, he would leave a gigantic hole in the Spurs front line, and all the creative flair of Son Heung-Min and Maddison would go to waste without someone to put all those chances away.

And Spurs haven’t yet been seriously linked with a bid for any of the number nines currently on the open market, like Dušan Vlahović or Randal Kolo Muani, even if their names have been mentioned in passing. That suggests that Spurs aren’t yet resigned to Kane’s departure – or that they have faith in the only player in the squad who could be considered as a back-up.

Richarlison did not have the best first season in a Spurs shirt. He managed just one league goal and looked a shadow of the player he was at Everton. Few Spurs fans are especially convinced by his ability as it stands. That said, he did bag a hat-trick in a pre-season just the other day - albeit against timid opposition in the form of Singaporean side Lion City Sailors.

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More notably, he was also Brazil’s first-choice striker for the World Cup in Qatar, scoring twice in the finals and five times during qualification. He struck at a rate of roughly one goal every three games for Everton, which is pretty impressive given that he wasn’t even playing as a number nine very often. He will never be as good as Harry Kane up front, but then Tottenham are not likely to get anyone who could be this summer – unless you think signing Kylian Mbappé is a realistic prospect. If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

The alternative is to spend big – and likely over the odds – on a player like Vlahović, who could cost around £70m. Like most other players who Spurs could realistically bring in as it stands, his ceiling is unlikely to be as high as Kane’s, but that’s the problem with having a generational player – he can’t really be replaced at all.