N'Golo Kante may have completed his move to Chelsea on Saturday, but the Blues had to fight hard to get their man amid interest from a number of Europe's biggest clubs.
The France international was offered to a host of clubs set to play in the Champions League next season - including Juventus, Arsenal and Real Madrid - while Leicester City also offered him a fresh four-year deal in a bid to keep him at the King Power Stadium.
But it was Chelsea and new manager Antonio Conte who secured a deal for the PFA Player of the Year nominee, so how were they able to pull off one of the summer's biggest deals?
Juventus came closest to adding the former Caen man to their squad ahead of the 2016-17 campaign as they held talks with Kante's entourage, but with no agreement over a fee reached, the Serie A champions missed out.
Kante's hometown club Paris Saint-Germain were also very keen given the player's ties to the club, but like Juve they were unable to get past talks with the player's representatives before Chelsea moved in.
Elsewhere, Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane was keen to sign a central midfielder for his Champions League winners, but they did not move quiclkly enough despite Kante being added to their shortlist in recent weeks.
In terms of interest from elsewhere in the Premier League, Arsenal passed having moved onto signing a striker in wake of signing Granit Xhaka while Manchester City opted not to pursue any deal after showing an interest at the start of the summer.
Perhaps the biggest competition came from China, with Shanghai Shenhua reportedly having tabled a £35 million bid in recent weeks, though the player was less keen to move to the Far East despite the money on offer.
All that left the door open for Chelsea and Conte to pounce as they look to bolster their squad following the disappointment of finishing 10th when defending their Premier League crown last term.
Reports surrounding Kante this summer have regularly focused on his release clause, with the £20m valuation outlined in his Leicester contract marking him out as one of the summer's biggest potential bargains.
So why have Chelsea been forced to fork out £10m more than required to bring him to Stamford Bridge?
Sports lawyer, Jake Cohen of Mills & Reeve, has explained to Goal that the clause in Kante's contract is more likely to have been one place in good-faith, rather than an automatic release clause that other players have inserted into their contracts.
"Where an automatic release clause forces the club to accept a bid at the amount specified in the release clause - as we saw last summer with Manchester City activating the £8m clause Fabian Delph negotiated with Aston Villa - a good-faith release clause simply requires the club to enter into good-faith negotiations with a club that bids the amount specified in the contract.
"However, the club is under no obligation to sell the player for an amount lower than his market value. An example that illustrates the nature of a good-faith release clause is Liverpool rejecting Arsenal's bid for Luis Suarez, even though Arsenal lodged a bid for the £40 million specified in Suarez's release clause plus an additional pound.
"As this was not reflective of Suarez' market value, Liverpool were free to reject the offer before selling him to Barcelona for more."
Much has been made of what Conte will bring to Chelsea after his success with Juventus and the Italian national side, and it seems to be already making an impact around the club.
Just as he did when the club were negotiatiing a new deal for John Terry and signing Michy Batshuayi from Marseille, the coach spoke directly to Kante on the phone in a bid to convince hm of the project he is looking to build in west London.
And Kante seems to have been impressed by what he heard after .
"At the beginning of the 2016-17 season, I chose to join Chelsea FC. It is a great club which has just recruited a great coach and want to reach high ambitions I share," he wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
"The club's project and the coach's speech have convinced me to join this new ambitious adventure."
Many have claimed that Kante only opted to chose Chelsea because of the money involved, with some questioning his integrity given Leicester's status as a Champions League club while Chelsea spend the upcoming campaign without European football.
And though Kante's reasons for joining the Blues have been kept mainly to himself, Cohen has revealed that Chelsea's finances are likely to have remained in fine fettle despite their poor season, with them continuing to dwarf those of Leicester despite the extra revenue available to the Foxes.
"Once the figures are released, we'll see that 2015/16 was, somewhat ironically, Chelsea's highest-earning season. Despite the poor results on the pitch, the new commercial deals will help bring in record-breaking revenues," he said.
"Specifically, the new £40 million per year shirt sponsorship deal with Yokohama is a substantial increase over the previous £18 million annual deal with Samsung." Added Cohen,
"Chelsea and the other Premier League clubs that competed in the Champions League last season will benefit the additional revenue from the new Champions League broadcasting deal, which is more that twice as lucrative as the previous deal."
"This season, as a result of Leicester earning entry into the Champions League and Chelsea being left out, there will be at least an £80 million swing in revenues between the clubs with Leicester likely adding at least £40 million and Chelsea missing out on that same sum, but the gap in revenue, and therefore spending power, is still significant."
With Batshuayi and Kante both through the entrance door, Conte is likely to continue adding to his squad as the new campaign begins to come into view over the horizon.
The club had shown a major interest in Roma midfeidler Radja Nainggolan, with the Serie A outfit having rejected three bids for the Belgium international.
And it is not yet clear whether the Blues will continue their pursuit of the 28-year-old given the similarities he has with Kante.
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- Goal