Chelsea's late January transfer scramble for Enzo Fernandez on Tuesday will likely have a knock-on impact on what Liverpool will need to spend in the summer.
The Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital era at Chelsea has been notable thus far for its willingness to spend big in the transfer market, the club having shelled out some £550m on 17 players since they took charge in May last year, with eight of those arriving in a January transfer window where they spent more than La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga combined.
In landing 21-year-old Fernandez, a World Cup winner with Argentina in December, it was a victory for persistence, but more so for the resilience of selling club Benfica. The Portuguese side had remained firm in their stance that Fernandez would not be leaving for anything less than his €120m (£105m) buyout clause. Chelsea eventually caved to those demands and Benfica sold a player for £95m more than they paid for him last summer.
