Raphinha and Raheem Sterling Chelsea transfers still leave Thomas Tuchel with his greatest task

The transfer talk has been dominated by what and who Chelsea needs. With Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen leaving and possibly Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso to follow, Chelsea’s most pressing need is to buy some new defenders.

However, much of the focus has been on a striker to replace Romelu Lukaku, who is almost certain to join Inter Milan on loan this week. Chelsea has been strongly linked with Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and bar the highly unlikely rumour-fuelled transfers of Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar. Few direct replacements for Lukaku seem to be on the shopping list.

If Chelsea does sign Sterling and not a more like-for-like replacement in the form of a more traditional Number 9, it may give us some insight into where Thomas Tuchel sees the attack going. And that would appear to be a more effective version of the fluid front three, like that deployed by Liverpool and Man City.

Perhaps the days of the ‘big number 9’ are coming to an end, although Erland Haaland may have something to say about that, in truth, there are very few world-class strikers available now.

Throughout Chelsea’s trials and tribulations up front over the last couple of seasons, it seemed to me that the issue of Chelsea’s attacking players not being able to finish was not the only problem.

There seemed to be no partnerships upfront. Largely due to injury, Covid, loss of form and the need to rotate due to fatigue, Tuchel rarely got a chance to see which partnerships would work. Timo Werner and Kai Havertz; Mason Mount and Havertz or any combination between Werner, Havertz, Mount, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Lukaku with anyone.

There was perhaps, another area which failed to function when it came