It’s hardly a return to Toshack, Stapleton, Latchford and Birtles, but the summer transfer window has gone some way to reversing a dispiriting recent trend. All of a sudden, the No 9s are back in fashion.

With false nines and sometimes no nines such a feature of the recent Premier League landscape, it has appeared at times as though the route to goal was becoming rather more complicated than it really needed to be.

At academy level, questions have been asked. Why does nobody cross the ball any more?

Of Liam Delap, Viktor Gyokeres, Benjamin Sesko and Hugo Ekitike, Chelsea’s new signing Delap is the smallest at 6ft 1in. That itself tells the story.

Goals are the hardest commodity to buy and, that being the case, the most expensive. At Stamford Bridge, the Emirates and Old Trafford, big money has been spent to fill holes so glaring they have been talked about for months.

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Champions Liverpool will begin their title defence when they kick off the new season on Friday

Tall strikers have been the flavour of the summer transfer window, with Liverpool signing 6ft 3in star Hugo Ekitike (left) and Manchester United buying 6ft 5in striker Benjamin Sesko (right)

If Newcastle wantaway Alexander Isak gets his move to Liverpool over the line before the end of the transfer window, it will feel like every other team will be competing for second place

At Anfield, on the other hand, Arne Slot is trying to build on last season’s title success by remodelling an attack that has lost Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez and, tragically of course, Diogo Jota.

Liverpool start at an obvious advantage in this year’s title race. They were the best team by a distance and have strengthened in other areas.

If Marc Guehi leaves Crystal Palace to partner Virgil van Dijk at the centre of Liverpool’s defence — and if the ugliness surrounding Isak’s future culminates in a move to Anfield — then it will start to feel as though everybody else will be playing for second.

Realistically, it feels as though only Arsenal can challenge unless something strange happens at Liverpool and Slot’s team comes back to the pack. But there is no reason why the Gunners can’t find a new gear and they won’t be short of motivation. If it doesn’t happen this time then it’s far from certain that Mikel Arteta —five-and-a-half years into the job at Arsenal — will be invited to stick around and try again.

Encouragement for last year’s second-placed team is that they were so far from their best in 2024-25 that they must feel they can improve. Arteta needs key players to stay fit, some consistency and, of course, goals from his new centre forward, Gyokeres —signed from Sporting Lisbon for an initial down payment of £55m.

If Arsenal can bring that to the table then we will have a race. Liverpool, as we have mentioned, have lost three attacking players and their best passer, Trent Alexander-Arnold. As for Mo Salah, nobody has really seen him since about last March and he was pretty much invisible until missing a penalty in last Sunday’s Community Shield.

Can the great Egyptian find the levels of the first half of last season at the age of 33? It may be the difference between a successful title defence and something altogether more disappointing. For what it’s worth, I fancy Arsenal to pip Liverpool this time, though I said the same last summer. Outside of that, United, Chelsea and perhaps even Manchester City — totally remodelled since this time last year — would appear to have too much to do.

Can Pep Guardiola weather an uncertain start at City? He looked exhausted at times last year. For sure, Ruben Amorim cannot expect to do so at United.

Chelsea will have eyes on the top prize after their excellent display at the Club World Cup

Mikel Arteta and Arsenal will be desperate to end their title hoodoo after finishing second again

Manchester United still have a glaring weakness with Andre Onana between the sticks

Part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has gone from pleading penury last season to spending big on Amorim’s creative hub during the summer. His claim when making another round of sweeping redundancies that United could have been broke by Christmas looks rather disingenuous as Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha settle in.

Whatever the case, it won’t be Sir Jim of Monaco who carries the can if things don’t work out. And why, by the way, haven’t they signed a goalkeeper?

Further down the menu, Newcastle finally look to have been caught on the horns of their own behind-the-scenes unhappiness — and that was always likely to happen — while Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest do not have the luxury of Champions League money to propel them forwards as they once hoped.

Forest have managed to keep Morgan Gibbs-White out of the clutches of Tottenham but to what end? Unhappy footballers don’t tend to play happy football after all.

Tottenham themselves remain eminently fascinating and now have one of our most likeable managers in charge. Will they chew up and spit out Thomas Frank like they have all the rest or will the Dane’s phlegmatic sense of perspective and self shield him from the pressures of all that ‘to dare is to do’ business on the Seven Sisters Road? Spurs have lost Son Heung-min to America and James Maddison to injury. Mbeumo, meanwhile, chose United over a reunion with his old Brentford manager.

Incomings have thus far been unexciting and the Spurs fanbase is restless. Chairman Daniel Levy chose to talk on a podcast to Gary Neville, meanwhile, but didn’t say anything. And on it goes at Tottenham.

At the bottom end, we need something to fundamentally change and we all know what it is. One of newly-promoted Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland must surely present a passable impersonation of a club that has any kind of interest in staying up. For the past two seasons, the new teams have been down with the Christmas decorations.

Some pragmatic football from one of them would help. At Sunderland, manager Regis Le Bris has promised it and we should all be relieved about that. Daniel Farke of Leeds couldn’t resist the temptation to express himself while at Norwich and twice he took them down.

Despite keeping star man Morgan Gibbs-White this summer, Nottingham Forest may struggle

Meanwhile at Everton, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall may prove a better signing than Jack Grealish

Burnley’s Scott Parker built last season’s promotion on incredible parsimony but at Turf Moor there has been mention of expansive football this time round. Please, no. 

Of those that may gravitate towards the bottom three, Everton — for whom Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall may prove a better signing than Jack Grealish — look short of depth while West Ham and Graham Potter still carry the whiff of a marriage made somewhere not particularly adjacent to heaven.

Bournemouth have lost good players while Brentford have lost a very good manager. Reasons for concern there, too.

So it’s Arsenal to win it from Liverpool and the rest some way distant. At the bottom… well we know what’s coming. Again.