There is rarely such thing as sheer coincidence in football. So it will not have passed unnoticed that as Liverpool applied the finishing touches to the transfer of Alexis Mac Allister, so it became known that Jude Bellingham had agreed a deal to leave Borussia Dortmund for Real Madrid.
While the eye-watering fee of an initial £88.5million rising to £115m with add-ons may not be at the high end of figures being bandied about earlier this year, it's still easy to see why Liverpool took the difficult decision to walk away from a prospective bid in April.
Unlike the seemingly limitless funds of Real Madrid - always a curious phenomenon - the Reds continue to work under realistic financial boundaries imposed by owners Fenway Sports Group, not helped by the failure to qualify for the Champions League next season.
It was determined the money could be better spent elsewhere. Few, though, could have anticipated Liverpool then spending barely a third of the outlay for Bellingham on snapping up Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton having triggered the player's release clause.
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That Real Madrid can, as has often been the case, offer Champions League football would no doubt have been another issue with with Liverpool would have had to contend had they continued their pursuit of Bellingham, the Reds finishing outside the top four for the first time in seven years.
That failing had been anticipated for some time given the Reds' poor first half of the season, after which a run of just two defeats in 18 Premier League games and the last 11 unbeaten wasn't enough to close the gap to the Champions League berths.
And, speaking back in December, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp reiterated his long-held belief players who only wanted Champions League football immediately weren't of the character to be a success under his tenure, particularly given it's likely the Premier League's top five will progress in a revamped competition next season.
"Top four is important but you ask it from a transfer perspective? Yes," he said. "Again, generally we have a good chance to qualify for the Champions League, 100% we are one of the contenders for the next few years again.
"If you ask a player and he says, ‘next year you are not in the Champions League and I would prefer to go to a football club who plays this year and maybe not next year’ then I am not sure I would still want this player, to be honest."
That, of course, never even became an issue with Bellingham. But that a player as in demand as Mac Allister - a World Cup winner who was courted by, among others, both Manchester City and United - has chosen Liverpool regardless of Champions League qualification is vindication of Klopp's methods and the continued potential of the squad.
There are portents from the past, too. Klopp hadn't been long in the Liverpool hotseat when he wanted to take Germany World Cup winner Mario Gotze - who he had worked with at Dortmund - from Bayern Munich in the summer of 2016, only for the failure to qualify for the Champions League by losing the Europa League final to Sevilla helping scupper any deal.
Liverpool instead turned, as they had many times around that period, to Southampton and snapped up Sadio Mane, who had offers from clubs in Europe's elite competition. Joel Matip had already committed to arriving on a free transfer from Schalke - for whom he had previously featured in the Champions League - while Gini Wijnaldum was brought in from Newcastle United when other clubs were on the table. All three became important figures in the Reds' first great team under Klopp.
Now Mac Allister will hope he can prove a foundation in a second successful iteration under the Liverpool boss. He has already shown the way for other prospective other summer signings.
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