3 Marquee signings who haven’t yet kicked a ball in the PL including £65.7m Arsenal and Liverpool duo

3 Marquee signings who haven’t kicked a ball in the Premier League yet

The Premier League is up and running with four matchdays of melodrama, talking points and surprises taking place to witness. The English transfer window was quite different from the European one, with the former getting closed before the start of the season, just like the Serie A.

So the clubs had to make their signings before the start of the season and with the World Cup around the corner, deals were done at a rapid pace. We saw Liverpool spending big bucks on several quality players, while Arsenal tried to strengthen their areas of weakness. Meanwhile, promoted clubs Fulham and Wolves splashed a lot of money this summer.

There was an abundance of marquee signings at each club. However, there are three players who were bought to rectify certain positions but are yet to kick a ball in the Premier League this season.

Bernd Leno (Arsenal) (Goalkeeper)

Arsenal have been perennially susceptible at the back and the goalkeeping situation was getting worse every season. They had Petr Cech keeping the goal, with the former Chelsea shot-stopper making mistakes. But under the new management of Unai Emery, a different role is expected from a goalkeeper – he has to be good on the ball and not make errors leading to goals.

For that reason, they spent £22m on Bernd Leno this summer to rectify the mistake. However, surprisingly, Emery hasn’t given the German a start so far. He is a keeper who was touted to be the next long-term shot-stopper at the Emirates stadium.

Fabinho (Liverpool) (Defensive Midfielder)

Liverpool’s problem of finding a proper defensive midfielder isn’t something new, ever since Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso departed. The Reds haven’t been able to replace them with a defensive midfielder who can do the dirty work in central areas of the pitch.

In Fabinho, Liverpool got what they wanted, that too for a price of £43.7m. But it’s baffling that Jurgen Klopp hasn’t provided the Brazilian with a single minute, which is quite rare to see for a player who is a marquee signing.

Ben Gibson (Burnley) (Centre-back)

Burnley bought a quality defender in Ben Gibson from Middlesbrough for a joint club-record fee of £15m. However, Sean Dyche has only given starts to the Englishman in the two Europa League games. The manager still seems to be happy with the partnership of James Tarkowski and Ben Mee at the back.

Read More: Do it Emery – Arsenal could look lethal with their £96.5m star duo playing together

But it is a little surprising to know that a club spent a record fee on a player only for him to not take part in the first phase of the league games.