The Premier League is in a weird spot, and it's a particular kind of weirdness that could make this one of the most active summers of transfers in a long time.

Let's take the season's major success story: Liverpool won the league but also have a bunch of money to spend and a team full of peak-age players whom they'd be happy to move on for the right offer. They also need to replace arguably the best attacking fullback the sport has ever seen.

Then, among the rest of the so-called "Big Six (Plus Newcastle)" -- the clubs with the deepest pockets in the league -- almost everyone else had a disappointing season.

Manchester City imploded and need to continue to refresh a past-its-sell-by-date squad. Despite City's implosion, Arsenal finished second for the third year in a row and were ultimately closer to landing in the Europa League than winning the title. Newcastle United bounced back into the Champions League, but need to improve the squad to compete at that level. Chelsea, well ... Chelsea would be hell-bent on spending, regardless of how the team performed. And Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur both finished in the bottom half of the table despite annual revenues among the 10 largest in world soccer.

Just about all of the Premier League's biggest clubs should be -- and need to be -- active in the transfer market this summer. Ahead of the official opening of the summer window, let's take a look at the biggest areas of need for all seven big-time clubs.

Liverpool: At least one fullback

It's not just that Liverpool might have to replace the best attacking right back in Premier League history this summer. They might have to replace the best attacking left back in Premier League history this summer, too.

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No Premier League fullback has more career assists than right back Trent Alexander-Arnold. And the only fullback who has more career assists than left back Andrew Robertson is Trent Alexander-Arnold. TAA is reportedly off to Real Madrid, while Robertson's prime years are officially behind him.

Amid a fantastic season for Liverpool as a whole, Robertson frequently struggled. He lost his place in the starting XI to Kostas Tsimikas at one point, and his offensive output declined while his defensive struggles intensified. Among Liverpool's 11 most used players, he's the only one who could clearly be upgraded with an outside transfer. Plus, he'll be 31 at the start of next season -- not an age when players tend to improve or even halt their declines.

At right back, the club's decision-makers probably wish they could feel comfortable transitioning to 21-year-old Conor Bradley, an elite athlete who can get up and down the sideline in the way Robertson used to do. But Bradley has struggled to stay healthy over the two years of his fledgling professional career, and relying on him to be first choice isn't a risk the club needs to take.

Instead, what appears most likely is Liverpool will look to balance out both flanks with the profiles of players they tend to sign: an up-and-down athlete on one side and a controlling passer on the other. The market will probably dictate which side gets which kind of player. (Reports have the Reds close on confirming a move for Bayer Leverkusen's Jeremie Frimpong as an Alexander-Arnold replacement, while they've also been linked with Bournemouth standout Milos Kerkez to fill the need on the left.)

Gab & Juls debate whether Arsenal should sign Benjamin Sesko or Viktor Gyökeres.

Arsenal: A shot-getter

Outside of injuries and red cards, the major difference between Liverpool and Arsenal this past season was pretty simple: shots.

Some of this is tactical, but more of it appears to be personnel-based. Liverpool have a team full of dynamic, vertical players who can push the ball quickly toward goal and create space for shots. Diogo Jota, Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai all ranked in the top 40 for shots per game by the time the league title had been wrapped up.

Arsenal had only three players in the top 40: Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, and Kai Havertz. Trossard is too old to be relied upon for a team with Arsenal's ambitions; Havertz is coming off of a serious injury; and both Havertz and Trossard ranked below all four of the Liverpool attackers listed above.

Rather than focusing specifically on a striker, like everyone thinks they should, Arsenal just need to find someone -- perhaps multiple someones -- who can increase the team's capability to generate attempts on goal.

Newcastle: A wide attacker

While forward Alexander Isak's consolidation as a true superstar and defensive midfielder Bruno Guimarães's continued superstardom were the two main reasons that Newcastle reclaimed a Champions League place this season, winger Jacob Murphy's career year doesn't rank too far behind.

Murphy set career bests in minutes, goals and assists on the right wing this season. The same goes for expected goals, expected assists, shots, passes into the penalty area and chances created. By every metric, Murphy was better than ever before. He was genuinely one of the better wide attackers in the Premier League.

And yet!

First, his expected goals and assists numbers were well below his actual output, so we should already expect some regression there as he and his teammates convert their chances at a more normal rate. Second, he'll be 30 at the start of next season. For those two reasons, it's incredibly unlikely that Murphy does this all again -- this past season was found money.

With the incoming Champions League money, plus the money from the richest owners in all of professional sports, Newcastle should be able to find a younger, Champions League-level attacker to take over Murphy's starter minutes. Plus, by shifting Murphy into more of a spot-starter role, there's a better chance he'll be able to maintain some of the efficiency we saw this past season.

Manchester City: A creative midfielder

This was -- by far -- Kevin De Bruyne's worst season at Manchester City. He frequently looked like he had a cartoon storm cloud following him up and down the field, dumping water on his head, forcing him to slick his hair back.

Remember how entire stadiums would hold their breath whenever he wound up to hit a pass from outside the penalty area? And well, that's the point. You have to reach back in your memory to feel what that was like because it rarely happened this season.

My lasting memory from De Bruyne's final City season -- a composite image that represents the whole year -- is him lining up a bent ball to the back post from the right half space, and it either fluttering too high for any onrushing attackers or bending too much and landing out of bounds.

However, even the worst season from the Premier League's best-ever midfielder is still pretty darn good. The 33-year-old was easily City's most important ball-progressing player and chance creator this year, despite playing a much more limited minutes load.

In the past, De Bruyne was one of the players who allowed City to play in such an unbalanced way. They didn't have to commit as many attackers forward because De Bruyne's passing could break down defenses, and they didn't have to take as many risks in possession because, again, De Bruyne's passing could break down defenses.

Even if De Bruyne were staying on at the club, City would've still needed to find another player who could do that. Without him, it easily becomes priority No. 1 for this summer.

Steve Nicol talks about Chelsea's Premier League season after the team finished fourth to secure its spot in the Champions League.

Chelsea: Better defenders

For all the talk about Cole Palmer's second-half-of-the-season struggles and Nicolas Jackson's injuries and/or inability to convert shots into goals, Chelsea's attack has been more than good enough this season. By expected goals, this is a top-four quality offensive team.

Rather, the defense has been the bigger problem. Chelsea allowed a combined quantity and quality of chances akin to a borderline Europa League-level team this past season. Here's a theory: most of that stems from a lack of talent across the backline.

Although he's at least getting on the field now, Marc Cucurella feels like a league-average fullback -- no more, no less. On the right side, Reece James hasn't been the world-class two-way player we remember from a few seasons ago, and Malo Gusto lost his spot in the starting lineup to James.

At center back, Levi Colwill is a really nice passer, but he has struggled without the ball ever since Wesley Fofana went down with a season-ending hamstring injury. Given how Fofana hasn't had an injury-free season since the 2020-21 campaign, you can't expect him -- or his partnership with Colwill -- to ever see the field consistently.

The other center backs: Tosin Adarabioyo was a depth signing from Fulham, Trevoh Chalobah was an emergency loan-recall from Crystal Palace, Benoît Badiashile doesn't play, and Axel Disasi was loaned ... to a direct competitor for a Champions League place.

Will Chelsea's ownership be able to avoid chasing after the shiniest new attacker and invest in players to improve the team's defense? Or will they, I don't know, somehow sell the phenotype of the grass at Stamford Bridge to their own parent company and reinvest that money in the most famous player available?

Tottenham: A midfielder who can pass

Somehow, every midfielder on Tottenham is the same player: decent ball winners, pretty good ball carriers, and absolutely horrible passers of the ball.

Were this baseball, where it doesn't really matter how players contribute value as long as they're contributing somehow, that might be fine. But in soccer, it's a problem when none of your midfielders can pass since, well, "passing" is the main thing that a midfielder does.

Per Michael Imburgio's DAVIES model, not a single Spurs midfielder ranks in the top 75 of the Premier League for the amount of value they provide in buildup passing. And it's not like these guys are N'Golo Kanté without the ball, either. They're all decent defenders, but not so good off the ball that it's worth covering up all of their in-possession deficiencies.

You can, maybe, have one or two of those players in your midfield rotation. You can't build your entire midfield out of them.

Manchester United: ... Anyone anywhere?

This team is terrible -- and they don't have the injury-crisis excuses that Spurs do.

Their best player is Bruno Fernandes, and he turns 31 in September. They've signed a bunch of young-ish central defenders over the past couple seasons, but beyond that -- actually, scratch that. Bruno is old enough that he'll need to be replaced soon, and none of the center backs have been lights-out, either.

United could target players at literally every position on the field and potentially make this team better. It didn't seem possible, but somehow they feel even further away from contention than they did when Erik ten Hag was managing the club, and the Glazer family was still in charge.