Football news - Change in system? Worry for Gilmour? Stroke of genius? – What can Saul be at Chelsea?

When Premier League football returns this weekend you would be forgiven for being surprised at seeing the name Saul Niguez on the Chelsea team-sheet.

The closing of the transfer window came after a weekend of club action and before an international break. That means unless your name is Cristiano Ronaldo (where your every breath is documented) then you may have slipped through the cracks of the public consciousness.

That seems to certainly have been the case for Saul, who joined Chelsea in a late loan move with option to buy from Atletico Madrid. The move was probably lost for a few reasons. The first is, as we mentioned earlier, the international break and all the chaos that has brought. The other is probably because of other moves that did or did not happen. On deadline day most of the general populous were focusing their attention on Kylian Mbappe and his move to Real Madrid, that did not end up happening. Chelsea fans were probably a little more focused on the move for Jules Kounde, that also did not happen. And even for Atletico, the reason Saul left was so they could make room for Antoine Griezmann to return to the club, a stunning move that rightly demanded a lot of attention.

But this is a move that could be demanding everyone’s attention soon. Saul will feel as if he has to reinvent himself and show what he can do because of something that will probably be a mild concern for Chelsea. Over the past few years Saul has gradually shifted away from the centre and out to the left. Whether in a 4-4-2 or Simeone’s new 3-1-4-2 Saul has gradually moved over. Now part of that is down to trusting Saul to do what is needed on the left, particularly last season when Kieran Trippier proved to be such a threat on the right. But part of it is down to the fact that Saul wasn’t quite the player he was compared to Atletico’s run to two Champions League finals.

So perhaps a change of scenery, and the impact of someone like Tuchel, could be the jolt that Saul’s career badly needed. If that is the case then a loan with a reported £3.5m fee up front and then £30m option at the end of the season could be a bargain. For the record this is not us saying that Saul is washed up, he was still an excellent player last season, it just felt as if he was perhaps a notch his previous best.

And if he gets back to the level he is capable of then it opens a few interesting questions for Tuchel and Chelsea. The first, and most prominent, is where does he get used? Saul is a hard-worker, you have to be if you’re a Simeone favourite, but he’s not an exceptional ball-winner like Kante is. He’s at his best when he can drive, either with or without the ball and try to create in the final third, as well as popping up for his own goals. He will cover ground but he’s not going to break things apart from a defensive standpoint.

It may stand to reason then that you’d like to play him with Kante, but actually that might end up leaving the defence too exposed with both players pushing up for different reasons. Saul’s best partner might be Jorginho. The Italian shields the defence and often looks to move the ball on rather than drive up the pitch himself. Saul will offer a nice release valve when Jorginho receives the ball from a defender but will do his defensive work and won’t leave the European Champion alone in midfield. He will also offer a nice secondary target for Romelu Lukaku to play off when the attacking midfielders drift wider to open things up.

What will be interesting for the next few games will be to see how the wing-backs operate. Reece James’ suspension means that Cesar Azpilicueta will shift out from centre-back. That could mean that Marcos Alonso is given more freedom on the left and Azpilicueta comes inside to offer some support centrally if Saul pushes forward. Saul showed he could happily cover the left-flank, there’s no reason he can’t help out on the right as well if it is so needed. It’s a small thing but these little tweaks are what can help Tuchel give his opponents something else to think about.

But Saul’s arrival could also precipitate a change in formation for Tuchel. The German has been pretty wedded to the 3-4-3/3-4-2-1/5-2-3 whatever you want to call it since he arrived but he’s proven himself to be flexible in the past. The most obvious move would be to a 4-3-3 with Saul joining Jorginho and Kante in the midfield. It would mean sacrificing a centre-back as well as risking Alonso playing as a left-back rather than left wing-back. But it would give Chelsea something different and becoming less predictable is going to be key this season with teams having six months of Tuchel tape to plan off.

It’s off-beat, but if Tuchel wanted a new way to launch his attack-from-all-angles philosophy Saul’s arrival might make him consider occasionally using a diamond. Again, not to move completely away from the 3-4-3 but more to offer something different. In that system you can still unleash the full-backs but use Jorginho as the deepest midfielder. In this system the Italian can drop into the defence to form a three. Then you can have Saul and Kante ahead of him covering every blade of grass. Mason Mount can play as the 10 with freedom to interchange with second-striker Kai Havertz, who would start alongside Lukaku.

The other issue that might be plaguing Chelsea fans is what happens to their young players next season. It had been expected (hoped) that one or both of Billy Gilmour and Conor Gallagher would be moved into the first-team next summer. For that to happen either Saul won’t be signed permanently (and it is entirely possible he is just a stop-gap) or someone else will leave, maybe Mateo Kovacic. With the likes of Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori and Marc Guehi leaving this summer, and Callum Hudson-Odoi’s future extremely uncertain, the future of academy products is a cause of concern for fans.

There is a very real scenario next summer where Saul impresses and stays and Chelsea either loan Gilmour and Gallagher out again or even sell them with buy-back clauses or sell-on percentages. So far it feels as if both are doing as much as they can to prevent that from happening. But that isn’t always enough at Chelsea. If they fulfil their end of the bargain it’s up to the club to do theirs. It’s the

At the end of the day, Saul is just 26 years old (hello to the people telling me he’s 27 in two months) and he has the potential to take another step and get even better. In today’s market the price is a snip and in a few seasons it could in a “best PL bargains of last five years” article. The move from the transfer team is a good one. Now it is up to Tuchel to get the best out of him as well as balancing the development of the club’s young stars moving forward. Pull that off, and Chelsea fans could be treated to something very special.