Raheem Sterling. Kalidou Koulibaly. Marc Cucurella. Wesley Fofana. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Denis Zakaria. It's an impressive list of new additions to the Chelsea first-team squad – and let's not forget the number of talented young players recruited from Premier League rivals and beyond at no little expense.
It's why the first transfer window of the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital ownership can only be viewed as a success; genuine quality has been added and a number of fringe players with no long-term value to were moved on. Yet the route taken to reach that endpoint was far from straightforward.
The summer window was like no other for Chelsea, at least in recent memory. With the measured and sometimes frustrating Marina Granovskaia no longer at the helm of the club's transfer business, it was left to Boehly to enter the fray. The American had no grace period, he was straight in at the deep end of the European game.
