It\u2019s now two days since the end of the Premier League\u2019s most absurd transfer window yet, and to be honest we\u2019re still trying to work out how to even begin processing the sheer volume of nonsense.<\/p>\n
Who won<\/strong><\/a>? Who lost<\/strong><\/a>? How to even define these things? Does any of it even matter? This was the summer when the Chelseafication of the transfer market was complete<\/strong><\/a>. A summer marked not just by the absurdity of the sums being thrown around in transfer fees but the sense that it didn\u2019t even really matter.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something distinctly housing bubble about it all, about how it doesn\u2019t seem to matter what you do the value just keeps going up anyway. The sheer breadth of the money-spunking exercise has become its own defence mechanism. Spent \u00a3100m on a dud? Fear not, someone will soon be along to give you \u00a380m for them anyway.<\/p>\n How do you try to apply reason to a world where Chelsea can spend \u00a360m on Mykhailo Mudryk, watch him be quite crap for a while and then banned for another while, and then agree a deal that means this time next year they might turn a profit?<\/p>\n You can\u2019t. But we have to try. So we\u2019re going to attempt that by going back to the deep, dark depths of three weeks ago, just before actual Premier League football rudely intruded again, when we attempted to identify the 10 biggest problems or most conspicuously gaping holes across the Premier League<\/strong><\/a> as the transfer clock ticked, and see whether any of them actually got sorted. Or, again, whether any of them actually mattered at all.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Tottenham\u2019s striker<\/strong> Spurs have added Savio, Omar Marmoush and Mykhailo Mudryk to their squad since then. They have not (yet<\/strong><\/a>) shifted either Dominic Solanke or Richarlison, who do appear to be the two remaining players at the club with the spikiest relationship with the spiky Roberto De Zerbi.<\/p>\n De Zerbi has already talked about a double-figure goals target for Savio this season and it does seem Spurs will have a collective approach to arriving at a suitable overall tally.<\/p>\n Marmoush does look like a smart addition, and the last striker to decide trying to compete for minutes with Erling Haaland at Man City was a futile, career-wasting endeavour has done all right.<\/p>\n But he\u2019s not a pure number nine either. The lack of real links with such a player \u2013 the other big attacking targets that fell through for Spurs were Cody Gakpo and Iliman Ndiaye \u2013 suggest maybe De Zerbi doesn\u2019t want one. Because he really did get given pretty much everything he did ask for.<\/p>\n Two Premier League games into the season, Spurs haven\u2019t yet scored a goal or particularly looked like scoring a goal. So whatever this new-look attack is going to be, it does need to be it really quite soon to prevent an understandably if amusingly stuttering start for a club at last throwing its transfer weight around becoming another whole season of doom and despair.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manchester City\u2019s midfield But it really did look in Cardiff like a midfield of Elliott Anderson and Mateo Kovacic wasn\u2019t really going to work, and City duly responded as City now do by throwing another nine-figure sum at the problem to bring in Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea.<\/p>\n Fernandez was already guaranteed pantomime-villain status in the Premier League this summer after his World Cup<\/strong><\/a> antics with Argentina. Becoming the poster boy for a summer of such extreme and untethering largesse by moving from one of the Premier League\u2019s two most notorious money-chuckers to the other represents a bold doubling-down on that status. There will be plenty who are willing him and City to fail, even if it does mean the previously well-liked Anderson becoming collateral damage.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manchester United\u2019s defence<\/strong> There\u2019s going to be an awful lot of strain on that defence when the two-game-a-week schedule kicks in. A lot has been staked on Luke Shaw remaining fit and reliable for pretty much the entirety of the next four months.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Liverpool\u2019s fitness So what then to make of Liverpool ending up with the summer\u2019s biggest net spend of the lot when the music finally stopped<\/strong><\/a>? And also ending up with a squad that doesn\u2019t really look any better than last season\u2019s.<\/p>\n Bradley Barcola is a thrilling and brilliant but enormously expensive addition<\/strong><\/a> to their attack, but Liverpool are still going to need a couple of the thus far underwhelming thrilling and brilliant but enormously expensive additions to their attack from last summer to really kick on if it\u2019s going to mean anything.<\/p>\n As for the specific issue of fitness, Liverpool have scored two late equalisers in a pair of 2-2 draws to start the season. So maybe they\u2019re fine. Or maybe there are deeper issues, because this time last year they were busy scoring last-minute winners that turned out to be masking some significant issues. Maybe it\u2019s just a coincidence. Maybe it\u2019s all just a bunch of stuff that happened. Maybe none of it means anything at all.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Chelsea\u2019s goalkeeper In a summer where nobody agrees on anything, let us all revel in the common ground that Emi Martinez is better than Robert Sanchez.<\/p>\n Thank you, Chelsea, for providing this unifying moment.<\/p>\n Obviously, this was the perplexing summer of 2026 so now the worry instead lies in midfield where the departure of Fernandez without replacement does raise a fresh concern. The absence of European football does mean Chelsea can probably muddle through to January with what they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n As long as Moises Caicedo remains upright, then a rotating supporting cast of your Romeo Lavias, Valentin Barcos and Reece Jameses might be enough until Chelsea get another chance to throw \u00a380m at the problem in January.<\/p>\n The alternative, of course, is the desperate but always entertaining option of taking a punt on the Free Agent Lucky Dip<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Given Spurs\u2019 enduring fondness for Chelsea cast-offs, flops and unwanted spare parts<\/strong><\/a>, there would be something particularly delicious in the Blues opting for Yves Bissouma or, if you really want to unleash the most banter option of all, Tanguy Ndombele as a suitable warm body just to fill a squad place until the new year.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Aston Villa\u2019s midfield<\/strong> Villa have endured another summer of upheaval and had to do it all while carefully balancing the chips they must carry at all times on both shoulders, but while there\u2019s been far more change than you\u2019d really like to ideally see we do think they\u2019ve come out of it all\u2026 okay. They\u2019ve done some really smart business all over the pitch despite the undeniably disconcerting and disorientating effect of having so much of the spine that has underpinned their recent success \u2013 Martinez, Konsa, Tielemans, Rogers, Watkins \u2013 ripped out.<\/p>\n We\u2019re certainly more confident that their goalless, pointless start to the season is more of a blip than certain other goalless, pointless starts to the season anyway.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Newcastle\u2019s Newcastle The only possible spanner in the Newcastle works now is the undeniable fear that taking four points off Liverpool and Tottenham to start the season has actually told us a lot more about Liverpool and Tottenham than it has about Newcastle.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll know far more about the true value of those two fine results after they play a less silly club. Bournemouth this weekend looks ideal.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
Perfect place to start, isn\u2019t it? Because the answer here is\u2026 kind of? Maybe? It\u2019s suitably unclear anyway.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>This was a post-Community Shield kneejerk<\/strong><\/a> and one should always be wary of a post-Community Shield kneejerk. Such things are dangerous enough after the actual football has started, never mind a friendly.<\/p>\n
The necessary surgery was completed on the midfield, but the risks of sticking with a creaking and ageing defence have already been on display in United\u2019s first couple of games in which a pair of promoted teams have helped themselves to four goals against a defence that four years ago was shipping four at Brentford.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>A lot of this summer\u2019s focus has landed inevitably upon City and Chelsea and Spurs where the most outlandish behaviour has generally been to be found.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yes! Finally, a clear and decisive tick. This was an obvious problem before a ball was kicked. Became an even more obvious problem in the first game of the season. And was then addressed.<\/p>\n
Another welcome one where we can at least point to specific action taken with the arrival of the vastly experienced Leon Goretzka as a free agent following his Bayern Munich exit an under-the-radar bit of late-August business that might end up looking very canny indeed just as soon as everyone realises it happened.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Forget about this one. Turns out Matthias Jaissle is actually a genius and everything is fine actually.<\/p>\n