Chelsea's ambition to cut down on their squad size by ridding themselves of too many fluid players that are neither here nor there in attack has started. Joao Felix's loan was the end of his time in west London and Kai Havertz's true best position is still unknown.
The general consensus is that Mikel Arteta will make him a midfielder that drives from deep. Anyone that watched him at Stamford Bridge under Frank Lampard would be justified in questioning the reason behind such a shift.
Christopher Nkunku, though, has arrived and is the archetypal Chelsea signing of the past five years. He is a player without a defined position and that would ideally like to play behind or in support of a true focal point in attack. The issue presented to Blues bosses over the years has been the distinct lack of success when it comes to trying or judging their strikers.
Nkunku now heads into his first year in England with unknown quantity Nicolas Jackson currently as the main centre forward while Armando Broja recovers from injury. The desire to bring in another player to take the burden away from a host of promising widemen is serious and cannot be understated.
The price of these players is a big sticking point, though, with all top strikers set a near universal floor of £100 million ($128m) just to start a dialogue. Victor Osimhen, Harry Kane and Rasmus Hojlund are all going to be in or around that figure while Lautaro Martinez and Dusan Vlahovic won't be coming much cheaper.
If you can't join the race to sign one of the attacking demons listed then the next best option for Chelsea, it seems, is to revert back to the fluid players in-between a striker and a No10. Not quite a false nine but not quite anything else.
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Primarily among this group of players is the newest target for the position, Paulo Dybala. The Argentine has obvious links with Chelsea now after his fellow countryman, Mauricio Pochettino, was appointed as head coach.
The new boss courted Dybala in 2019 when at Tottenham and described him as one of the best. “He’s a great footballer and Juve is a different team when he’s on the pitch and when he’s not,” Pochettino said at the time. “Like Messi, Cristiano and Neymar, he has the ability to give the team lots of alternative options."
Since then he has changed team following an exit from Juventus. At Roma he has continued to dazzle but also frustrate. A player with all the talent in the world is now 29 and looking to round off an impressive career without ever reaching the heights truly imagined of him.
To be a five-time Serie A champion, four-time Italian Cup winner, World Cup holder and scorer of over 100 goals for the Old Lady and yet still have some feeling of more to have been had, is a demonstration of his talents. In the past two seasons, marred by missing 36 games through injury, he has still scored 22 league goals with 12 assists.
He is as perfect of a shadow striker as Italian football could have wished for in the absence of bygone legends like Roberto Baggio. His output from attack without being a central point to teams is a testiment yet again to a player blessed with skill. 12 goals and seven assists in another fitness plagued year at Roma demonstrates why Chelsea are considering matching the £10.3m ($13.2m) release clause in his contract.
This is a player that in 2018 was valued at £93.9m ($120.5m) by Transfermarkt and at the peak of his powers. He netted 22 times for Juventus the season before and would get 11 with 11 assists in 2019 as well. His first three years in Turin saw him bag 52 times in the league as a player in their early 20s.
Chelsea were nowhere to be seen at the time, understandable given their own attacking success of the period, but here they are now faced with a player who's value has slumped slowly and steadily, as have his minutes. With a player that now lies outside of the desired age range for new signings and is approaching his 30th birthday, it would be a move away from the recent transfer activity for Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital.
They have made a foundation for a promising young squad based around players 23 and younger, selling or releasing five players over 27 since January. Dybala would be the first player since attention shifted from experienced recruits in the messy summer of 2022 to come in to Stamford Bridge and may well muddle the thinking.
Even with a value now standing at just £17m ($21.8m) according to CIES football observatory, whether it is worth the risk or not is another question.
There is attraction to the signing of a player like Dybala but having spent much of the recent months correcting mistakes made last year, risking even a small fee on a player like Dybala would be a move away from the methods used to create Pochettino's platform.
