Mauricio Pochettino must solve final Chelsea transfer dilemma amid £30m Newcastle interest
If Chelsea's squad was short in midfield 10 days ago then it certainly wasn't lacking at left-back. Heading into the pre-season tour of America there were four obvious candidates for an orthodox left-sided full-back role, at least one too many for a realistic Premier League squad.
Although 18-year-old Lewis Hall was listed as a midfielder — partially down to it being his natural positon during his formative academy days — he has primarily featured at left-back at senior level and is being considered in that role now.
It was Levi Colwill that took on the situational space of a left-back for much of the opening game of the season with Liverpool, filling in whilst Ben Chilwell stormed forward or into central areas to guard against Trent Alexander-Arnold inverting. During the second half in particular it became apparent that Colwill was all but acting as an orthodox full-back.
It was the first time in his career that it's happened but that's Chelsea. In the past two seasons they have done similarly to wing-backs, often turning to attackers or midfielders including Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Raheem Sterling, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and even Conor Gallagher.
Now it's full-back. Hall hardly got a minute Stateside and is certainly on the periphery of the squad. At left-back it's hard for him to see consistent first team gametime due to Chilwell as first choice let alonethe competition from Ian Maatsen off the back of a massively impressive loan spell at Burnley and Marc Cucurella's £60million shadow.
Of all the transfers done last summer, Cucurella could prove the most costly in many ways. He commanded more than Sterling and showed much less than his English teammate. Unlike Kalidou Koulibaly he hasn't yet been sold this summer and
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