Chelsea find themselves in the usual spot of uncertainty as the 2025-26 Premier League season moves into its final stretch. Under head coach Liam Rosenior, who took charge in January after Enzo Maresca’s exit, the Blues sit fifth in the table, looking great at times yet failing to string together the consistency a top-four finish demands.
João Pedro leads the scoring charts with 14 goals across all competitions, and the club reached an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, so there are clear reasons for optimism. Still, defensive vulnerabilities have cost Chelsea points at critical moments this term, and the left-back situation in particular has become a conversation the board can no longer ignore heading into the summer window.
Chelsea and Arsenal battle for Lewis Hall
Chelsea and Arsenal are both targeting Newcastle United left-back Lewis Hall ahead of the summer window, with reports from Spain indicating Chelsea currently lead the race for the 21-year-old. Spanish outlet Fichajes broke the story, confirming Chelsea’s position at the front of the queue and citing the club’s need to bolster the left side of the defence following Marc Cucurella’s expected departure.
Sky Sports have separately linked Manchester United with Hall, who they see as a long-term successor to the ageing Luke Shaw. Newcastle reportedly value Hall at a minimum of £70 million and remain reluctant to sell, viewing him as central to their present and future plans.
How has he performed?
In the 2025-26 Premier League season, Hall has recorded one goal and one assist across 1,752 minutes of league football, averaging a FotMob rating of 7.07. He featured in 24 of Newcastle’s 31 league matches, most recently starting in last month’s 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge, where he posted seven recoveries, 14 passes into the final third, and three clearances without being beaten by a single dribble despite facing Cole Palmer, Reece James, and Malo Gusto down Chelsea’s right flank.
Newcastle captain Bruno Guimarães went further, calling Hall the best in the world after his performance against Lamine Yamal in the Champions League fixture against Barcelona. Hall holds a contract at St James’ Park through June 2029, so Chelsea will need to put together a massive offer if they intend to bring him back to West London.
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Would signing Hall actually fix Chelsea’s deeper problem?
Chelsea’s left-back issues go beyond Marc Cucurella’s inconsistency. The club have spent over a billion pounds since Todd Boehly’s takeover, but they still go into another summer needing to address the same positional gap with the same urgency as three windows ago. That pattern says something about the club’s transfer strategy that Hall’s arrival alone cannot resolve.
He is genuinely excellent, one of the few British full-backs who is as good at defending as he is at attacking, and his performance against Barcelona in the Champions League confirmed what Premier League fans already suspected. However, Chelsea buying back a player they once sold for £28 million, now likely at a price north of £70 million, raises a real question about internal planning.
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If Rosenior gets Hall, the signing gives Chelsea a left-back capable of starting at a World Cup this summer, and that matters enormously for squad morale and recruitment in other positions. The real test is whether the club build a coherent defensive structure around him, rather than treating the signing as just a quick fix for a much bigger problem.
