Christian Pulisic faces more pressure than most of Europe's top five leagues' fresh faces

As Europe's most prestigious clubs fly back to the Old World from preseason tours of all corners of the globe, it's the surest sign yet that the return of club football is just around the corner. As ever, the summer transfer window has seen teams splash stacks of cash, so ESPN FC enlisted Nick Miller to break down some of the new arrivals who are preparing for their debut campaigns in a new league.

Premier League

It's always a fun, if slightly pointless exercise to look for weaknesses in Manchester City's side. At the end of last season, the best you could probably come up with is "Fernandinho's getting on a bit," so naturally City promptly fixed that weakness with probably the best option available. Rodri arrived from Atletico Madrid for a hefty €70 million fee, but if the 23-year-old stays and excels for as long as Fernandinho did, then it will look like a shrewd purchase.

At the other end of the spending scale, Tottenham have very much kept their hands in their pockets for the past 18 months, but went big when they eventually did splash out. In theory Tanguy Ndombele is exactly what Spurs need, combining the best qualities of Mousa Dembele and Moussa Sissoko to give them many more options in central midfield. Not all theories work out, but for a team cautious about their business as Spurs are, Ndombele looks like as close to a guarantee as you can get.

It is slightly baffling that, at the time of writing, Arsenal appear to have little interest in buying a central defender who can help them this season. Still, newcomers further up the pitch look quite exciting, with the apparent imminent arrival of Nicolas Pepe and the signing-on loan of Dani Ceballos from Real Madrid. The latter can play in a couple of different roles in midfield, including No. 10: could he displace the already semi-marginalised Mesut Ozil even more this term?

The good news for Chelsea is that Christian Pulisic is used to dealing with expectation. The U.S. men's national team's leading man from an early age, Pulisic will now need to take that experience from the international stage to the Premier League, not only being the only genuinely new face in the Chelsea squad but now carrying the added pressure of having to replace Eden Hazard. With a rookie manager in Frank Lampard having to deal with limited resources, he really needs everything at his disposal to function properly. There's more emphasis on this signing than most.

The saga of Eden Hazard's move to Real Madrid was one of the longest running in recent history. The question now is: with that epic brought to a merciful conclusion this summer, will he make the sort of impact to justify the time spent getting him there? Hazard's talent verges on the genius, but regular Chelsea watchers will tell you that he can have long spells of anonymity, even whole seasons when he's below par. Will he get away with that at the most demanding club in the world?

It's an indication of where the transfer market is that Atletico Madrid paying €126m for Joao Felix was of course remarkable, but didn't exactly cause colossal shockwaves. Quite apart from seeing how he deals with the pressure of that fee, it will be fascinating to see how he adapts to Atletico, or maybe more accurately if and how Atletico change their style to reflect their new recruit.

It was only a year ago that Nabil Fekir was a point of obsession on Merseyside, a €60m move to Liverpool agreed only for it to break down over concerns about his knee. Now, after a season in which the playmaker made 29 league appearances with no major injury concerns, Real Betis may have got themselves a bargain, paying a third of that price for Fekir, where he could line up alongside Giovani Lo Celso (assuming he doesn't depart for Tottenham), Sergio Canales and William Carvalho. What a midfield that could be.