Summary Key takeaways: Chelsea's pursuit of Michael Olise from Crystal Palace collapsed due to threats of legal action from Palace, ending all attempts to sign him. Chelsea had activated Olise's £35m release clause and had an agreement with the player, but legal threats from Palace halted the deal. Despite the setback, Chelsea is still linked to Barcelona's Gavi and Lyon's Bradley Barcola, showing their determination to continue spending in the transfer window.
Chelsea's pursuit of Crystal Palace star Michael Olise "collapsed" this week due to threats of "legal action" from the South London side, per transfers expert Fabrizio Romano.
Chelsea news – What's the latest?
It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for the West Londoners regarding transfer dealings, as they seem to have dominated the headlines almost every day with a development of some kind or other.
First, it was the saga surrounding the transfer of Brighton & Hove Albion's Moises Caicedo, with it looking at one point like Liverpool were going to sign him, only for the player to pick Stamford Bridge over Anfield after Todd Boehly and Co made a record-breaking offer of £115m for his services.
It was the same story with Southampton's Romeo Lavia, with the Belgian opting to join the Pensioners over the Reds despite the Merseysiders having an offer of £60m accepted by the Saints.
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And then the narrative shifted to Palace's Olise, although Chelsea didn't end up getting their man this time.
Despite Sky Sports reporting that the Frenchman's £35m release clause had been activated by Mauricio Pochettino's side just two days ago, the two-time European champions have now ceased all attempts to sign him, and the South London club have instead announced a new four-year contract with the dynamic winger.
The reason for this sudden and dramatic change in circumstances is that Palace actually threatened them with legal action over the way they conducted this deal, with the main crux of their complaint being that their star was tapped-up by the Blues.
This threat of legal action ultimately quashed any chance of this deal happening, although Pochettino's side claimed that there was no wrongdoing on their part, per transfers expert Fabrizio Romano.
He explained the remarkable situation on his YouTube channel, saying:
"The deal for Michael Olise to Chelsea is off, collapsed. An unbelievable story, but I didn't tell you 'here we go' because, on that story, there was something to clarify between Chelsea and Crystal Palace on the mechanism of the release clause.
"Chelsea activated the clause, and they had an agreement in principle with the player, but what happened is that during the process where normally when you activate a clause, you have to speak to the other club to prepare all the documents to sign all the contracts. In this process, Chelsea were told by Crystal Palace they were considering to go legal, so to a tribunal to go with legal ways for this story for Michael Olise to Chelsea.
"They were not all happy of the approach on the player side they were not happy on how they acted to trigger the close, so Palace were prepared to go strong on this story and, so Chelsea prefer to leave the conversations to leave the deal. They insist they were doing everything absolutely in a correct way, so they were absolutely not doing anything illegal but to not create any problem and to avoid any issue Chelsea leave the conversations for Olise."
Who else are Chelsea linked to this summer?
With their pursuit of Olise well and truly finished, especially with the 21-year-old signing a brand-new deal with the Eagles set to keep him at Selhurst Park for another four years at least, who else have the West Londoners been linked to?
One surprising link that has arisen in recent days is to Barcelona's wonderkid and full Spanish international Gavi.
According to Spanish publication SPORT, the 19-year-old has long been admired by both the Blues and Paris Saint-Germain and following the Blaugrana's opening game of the new La Liga season, it's clear that Xavi is not going to give the exciting midfielder a guaranteed starting berth in the side.
The only problem is that 21-capped international has a release clause of around €1billion (£854m); although selling players for prices considerably lower than their release clause isn't unheard of in Spain, it would still likely cost an arm and a leg to get this deal done.
And if that wasn't enough, French outlet RMC Sport have reported that the Pensioners are also 'fully on the case' of Lyon attacker and France under-21 star Bradley Barcola.
According to the publication, the talks between Lyon and Chelsea have 'intensified'; however, with PSG also keen on the youngster, the price could rocket up to €50m (£43m).
Ultimately it looks like the failure to land Olise this week has done very little to dissuade Boehly and Co from spending even more money as the window enters the final two weeks.