Chelsea's three-month saga surrounding the future of the football club and who would be the next owner of the two-time Champions of Europe came closer to an end on Monday after the UK government approved the sale to Todd Boehly and his consortium.
Hours, days and months of uncertainty, twists and turns will finally come to head when the Blues officially confirm the businessman as the next owner to oversee a new era. The Premier League campaign fizzled out with a whimper as domestic performances were uninspiring, whilst a second penalty shootout defeat to Liverpool in the FA Cup after losing the same way to the same opponents in the Carabao Cup, summed up Chelsea's fortunes - or lack of - in the opening five months of the calendar year.
"It's been difficult at times to get exactly what is going on because there are very different groups involved. The government were briefing then you're going to different parties involved in the takeover process and either confirm that or get the true story on that, so it's not been easy at all," Chelsea correspondent Adam Newson revealed.
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"I must say during this process the people within the consortium that is going to take over Chelsea, there's always been a calm nature to it, they've always felt very strongly about the bid, what they had, they knew they could meet the guarantees set out by Abramovich for the club going forward.
"I think that's one of the most important things. I felt that this consortium led by Ted Boehly has been strong in themselves, there hasn't been fires they've had to put out along the way which some of the other bids did. In that respect, I felt positive about the Boehly bid and it'll be interesting to see how they handle the club going forward. It's inevitable that Thomas Tuchel will be given money to spend in the summer, how much will become apparent."
He added: "It will be bumped up in sales because there is going to be an overhaul of the squad in some capacity, there has to be because Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen have gone, there are decisions to be made over Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso, decisions to be made over Jorginho and N'golo Kante.
"There's a lot of big calls that Tuchel has to make alongside the new ownership and that will inevitably lead to departures, inevitably lead to some people staying who some fans may want to be leaving, but the market is the market, Chelsea can't sell a player if there's no buyers.
"It's going to be a few months of lots of transfer rumours, it's been a long process but we are at the end now. Once Chelsea get the announcement fully signed off then we can finally look ahead to the summer, Chelsea can act again in the transfer window, they can sell shirts again and they can do what they haven't been able to do under the sanctions placed under Roman Abramovich."
