The new season is up and running and for some clubs it has only taken one game to be afforded a deeply concerning insight into the work that needs doing. Fortunately for them, there are still a few days left in the transfer window in which to resolve some of those issues.Come 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 1, that time will run out. And in true Premier League fashion, there are already plenty of teams who look like they are going to be taking their business right down to the wire. With that in mind, here are some storylines to keep an eye on over the coming week:1. Liverpool’s wing movesThough a 2-2 draw on an emotive day at St. James’ Park is nothing to sniff at, Liverpool’s opening game of the season was more eye-opening for the work it showed was needed on Andoni Iraola’s squad than the battling spirit shown to draw 2-2 with Newcastle. The head coach himself is insistent that he does not need the sort of holding midfielder whose presence might have quelled some of the danger caused by Yoane Wissa and the fast-countering Magpies but he is likely to get a few new additions in wide areas.He needs them. Though Cody Gakpo was effective, scoring a brilliant low equalizer, Liverpool have been in talks with Tottenham over the sale of the Dutch international, who has 33 goals and 16 assists over 128 Premier League games. Those are hardly stellar numbers but Gakpo was the most senior option available to Iraola, who got the sort of performance from Rio Ngumoha that might be expected of a 17-year-old playing on his opposite flank. New signing Victor Munoz added a sparky presence down the right, drawing the penalty for their last-gasp equalizer, but he is not a natural on that side of the field either. Mohamed Salah’s empty boots remain unfilled.
Yankuba Minteh looks to be the man to succeed an all-time Anfield great, though the Reds’ first two offers to Brighton were rejected, a fee of around $95 million being set if Liverpool are to get their man. The 22-year-old may not have the sort of prodigious scoring record that Salah had in Serie A but perhaps if Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak, the former injured and the latter woefully out of form, can excel, then there will be little need for a scorer. Early in his career, Minteh’s outstanding qualities look to be around getting the ball in position for others to score, even if he is not doing much of the shooting himself.
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On the opposite flank, the standoff with Paris Saint-Germain over Bradley Barcola continues. Is the 23-year-old winger worth the near $200 million that Paris Saint-Germain are stated to want for him, their demands informed by the huge (and arguably overpriced) fee Chelsea paid for Morgan Rogers? Probably not, though it is a hard one to judge. In the last two seasons of Ligue 1 football, Barcola scored 25 goals and provided 11 assists. How different might they look in a competition where he is not playing for a team who are prohibitively superior to the field? In the Champions League, those numbers were five and eight at a rate of a goal involvement every 160 minutes.If that is it for Liverpool, there will be questions further back in the pitch. Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong struggled greatly when Newcastle won the ball on Sunday; both look as they did last season, wing backs from a five-man defense who are overwhelmed in a four. In midfield too, despite Iraola’s insistence to the contrary, there seems to be a lot of pressure on Ryan Gravenberch. There is work to be done.
2. Aston Villa under pressureIt is barely over three months since Aston Villa’s finest hour in a generation, a brilliant 3-0 win over Freiburg earning the Midlands side Europa League glory, their first European trophy in 44 years, their first major honor of any sort in 30. By the time the transfer window closes, there may be as few as five of the starting XI from that night still at Villa Park.Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers are gone. Villa would be prepared for Emiliano Martinez to follow, his replacement already secured in Japan international Zion Suzuki. Ollie Watkins may yet follow, Unai Emery offering barbed criticism of his star striker after he was missing from the matchday squad for the 4-0 loss to Brighton. Al-Hilal want to sign Watkins and the 30-year-old is understood to be keen on a move that would offer him a sizable pay rise.
Premier League Matchday 1 panic meter: Aston Villa blitzed, Man United stumble and Liverpool need time
James Benge
Whether a fee can be agreed with Villa remains in question, as does how Emery might build bridges with his star striker if a deal is not agreed. “You can call him and you can call his agent and he can respond,” stated the manager when asked if Watkins had refused to play. “He [Watkins] can only explain his answer, I can’t.”
Villa are not in the same position with their striker that they are with Martinez and to an extent, Rogers, whose place might well be taken by club record signing Johan Manzambi. Watkins played 11,817 minutes over the last four Premier League seasons, well over eight full games more than any other player in his position. Since Jhon Duran left in January of last year, Emery’s squad has not really had a convincing backup at center forward, Tammy Abraham struggling for game time. The best option for Watkins-free going into this season might have been 17-year-old Brian Madjo, who has never played a minute in the Premier League and is injured anyway.
Jean-Philippe Mateta of Crystal Palace, Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson and Juventus forward Jonathan David have been linked as potential replacements for Watkins but there are other spots that need filling. With Amadou Onana out for much of the season, midfield already looked light before debutant Joao Gomes got a yellow card for violent conduct. West Ham loanee Aaron Wan-Bissaka covers some of the right back minutes that Konsa would have taken but there is nothing in their squad that does as good a job of filling the center back berth where he was superior.
3. Is Bouaddi enough for Man City’s midfield?
One truth that Chelsea supporters could have told their Manchester City counterparts: Enzo Maresca is going to do weird things with his midfield. And that proved to be the case in their season opener, where the new boss insisted on hammering away with center back Marc Guehi (No. 6 in the graphic below) as the more advanced of a double pivot with Elliot Anderson. It’s not the usual Maresca blueprint, which tends to involve jamming a right back somewhere unexpected, but it was customarily esoteric.
All the more so given that there were plenty of options in the XI that would have enabled him to construct his side differently. Rico Lewis (No. 82) is as much a midfielder as a right back. He could have moved infield with Abdukodir Khusanov (No. 45) in the right back slot to which he is accustomed. Even when substitutions and injuries afforded Maresca a chance to change things, he chose not to. That Guehi’s header drew City level makes it feel like this gamble paid off. That the repurposed center back completed one more line-breaking pass in 90 minutes than Mateo Kovacic’s five in 27 minutes suggests City might have benefitted from a different profile in the engine room.
Maresca might argue he was not replete with options. Rodri and Tijani Reijnders have gone, Nico Gonzalez was on the bench but is expected to join Newcastle United. Ayyoub Bouaddi will soon join from Lille for $117 million, and despite his tender 18 years, it seems a matter of when, not if, he establishes himself in the team. A team that is competing on four fronts likely cannot call it a day there, even if their manager has plenty of fullbacks to stick in midfield. Chelsea’s deadline for the sale of Enzo Fernandez might have passed but speculation over a move has not gone away.
4. Arsenal trim back their squad
Another summer of aggressive spending on ready-made players has to be paid for, even at a club who are tracking towards revenues that might eclipse every other English club ever. Arsenal tooled Mikel Arteta up for another push at the Champions League with big money signings, most notably Bruno Guimaraes and Ezri Konsa. Room must be made.
Partly, Arsenal’s considerations are practical. The signing of seven senior players last year all but gave Arteta two players in every position, and when Guimaraes is taking the place of Christian Norgaard, 101 Premier League minutes, there may not be enough opportunities to go around, even when Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi get a breather or two.
Then there are financial matters. Arsenal are not expected to be at risk of breaching UEFA’s squad cost rules (SCR) if no more incomings or outgoings happen but they may not have as much breathing room as they would like. This is a club that has generated precious little in transfer income over recent years. So far this summer the sales of Leandro Trossard, Jakub Kiwior, Karl Hein and Norgaard have delivered around $55 million in sales and cost savings in the region of $27 million a year.
More could go. CBS Sports revealed on Monday that Arsenal and Al-Hilal were close to an agreement for the transfer of Gabriel Martinelli for what would be a club record fee, expected to be around $70 million. Arsenal would like to move Gabriel Jesus on from the final year of a contract stated to be worth nearly $18 million a year. Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson and Ethan Nwaneri could all depart, the latter more likely on loan given that the big money bids that had been expected have not materialized. Move all those players on and there is an estimated $45 million off the wage bill annually. For the likes of Martinelli, Nelson and Nwaneri, any transfer fee would be booked as profit too.
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What to do with that SCR breathing room? Arsenal hoped to turn it into Vinicius Junior but that option dried up. Their focus is as much on transformative attacking talent as the sort of forward who would take Martinelli’s spot on the left wing. Could Julian Alvarez be that? Arteta is a huge admirer and the Argentine is the sort of all-round center forward who suits Arsenal’s system more effectively than Viktor Gyokeres. Still, prying him from Atletico Madrid would likely require Arsenal to obliterate their club record fee. Is that worth it for a striker who averaged a goal every other game in Spain, who would need convincing to settle for north London when he is dreaming of Barcelona?
If not, Arsenal might have to settle for cash in their pocket and wait for the next big name to break loose.
