#squad-turnover

#squad-turnover

Liverpool lost Trent Alexander-Arnold, perhaps the greatest passer of the ball to ever walk the Earth, to Real Madrid. The pressing-and-pirouetting prowess of Luis Díaz departed for Bayern Munich. The guaranteed chaos and chance creation of Darwin Núñez left for Saudi Arabia. Oh, and a number of reliable backups found new homes, too: Harvey Elliott to Aston Villa, Kostas Tsimikas to AS Roma, Jarell Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen and Caoimhín Kelleher to Brentford.

Popular narratives and conventional wisdom are sometimes right. Heck, Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is more likely than the more complex one to be correct. Of course, Occam -- who wasn't actually called Occam, but was rather a 14th-century Franciscan monk who happened to be from a village named Ockham, a few miles down the road from Chelsea's training ground -- lived in a world without sports and, specifically, football. So take it with a pinch of salt.

Bayer Leverkusen have work to do after losing to Hoffenheim in their Bundesliga opener, though Erik ten Hag does not feel that should come as a surprise. Leverkusen went down 2-1 at home on Saturday, as new coach Ten Hag got off to a poor start in the Bundesliga. Jarrel Quansah put Leverkusen ahead, but Fisnik Asllani equalised before teeing up Tim Lemperle's winner.