Who is the Premier League signing of the summer?

There was a clear vacancy at the Emirates Stadium and Gabriel Jesus already looks capable of filling it following his £45 million move from Manchester City.

FAST START: Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus celebrates scoring their side's third goal of the game during the Emirates Cup final. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire.

WHEN Chelsea announced they had re-signed Romelu Lukaku last August, there was a strong consensus the return of the striker to Stamford Bridge would prove transformative.

The Blues broke the club’s transfer record when they paid £97.5 million for the Inter Milan forward and it was expected Lukaku would add firepower to a squad that had won the Champions League less than three months earlier, turning Thomas Tuchel’s side into a side with genuine Premier League title aspirations.

Twelve months on, Lukaku is back in Italy leaving behind a reminder that a big transfer fee doesn’t necessarily guarantee returns.

Right now, though, it’s hard not to see the two highest profile signings of the window - Manchester City Erling Haaland and Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez - enhancing the already formidable attacking play of their new teams and, in nine months time, reflecting on a successful first season in the Premier League.

But there will be other signings whose impact may well be felt more keenly at their clubs and, as Chelsea had hoped with Lukaku, help take their team to the next level with Gabriel Jesus heading that list.

While there were many positives for Arsenal to take from last season, the form of their principal strikers was not one of them. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang managed four league goals before leaving in January, a return matched by Alexandre Lacazette who departed this summer.

There was a clear vacancy at the Emirates Stadium and Jesus already looks capable of filling it following his £45 million move from Manchester City.

The 25-year-old, took just 90 seconds to score his first goal for the club after appearing as a substitute against Nuremberg and a hat-trick in last Saturday’s eye-catching 6-0 friendly defeat of Sevilla took his tally to seven goals in five pre-season games.

Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, is already impressed, praising Jesus’s ability to cause “chaos” among opposition defences. Having been on the fringe of Pep Guardiola’s City side and frequently employed out wide when he was involved, there is a sense Jesus is itching to make the most of the chance to operate as the focal point of the attack and will no doubt benefit from the service provided by the likes of Martin Odegaard, Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka.

There was a sense of disappointment hanging over the Emirates Stadium last season when Arteta’s side blew the chance to finish fourth and return to the Champions League for the first time in 2016 but the arrival of Jesus - as well as his former City team-mate Oleksandr Zinchenko has undoubtedly lifted the mood and raised expectations the Gunners can improve on last season’s fifth placed finish.

Rivalling Jesus as the most intriguing transfer of the summer, however, is Raheem Sterling's £47.5 million switch to Chelsea. It’s a measure of Guardiola’s confidence that the Catalan has sanctioned the move of one his senior players to a rival and reflects how Sterling had drifted out of favour at the Etihad Stadium.

At 27, the England winger is arguably at his peak and will provide an immediate injection of quality and know-how into a forward line that too often appeared toothless last season. With Mason Mount and Kai Havertz alongside him, Sterling will provide the kind of threat Chelsea have been lacking since Eden Hazard left and is also likely to be fired by a desire to prove Guardiola wrong.

Ivan Perisic’s contribution at Tottenham Hotspur will be a factor in Antonio Conte’s attempt to build on last season’s fourth-placed finish. At 33, the former Inter Milan winger is likely to be used carefully as Spurs balance the demands at home and in Europe but his experience of having worked with Conte at Inter will be crucial as the manager attempts to create a side that can challenge for the title.

At the other end of the table, it is Nottingham Forest who appear to have done the shrewdest business. The capture of Jesse Lingard as a free agent and the forward’s former Manchester United team-mate Dean Henderson on loan could make a telling difference to the club’s hopes of staying up.

Lingard was criticised for demonstrating a lack of ambition when he joined the midlands club but he will help address the goalscoring problems that so many promoted sides suffer from. Keeper Henderson has a point to prove to United where he felt he deserved more opportunities and is battling for a place in England’s World Cup hopes. Between them, they could help keep Forest out of the bottom three.