How many trophies has Mason Mount won?

But he was worth every penny to Chelsea, where he won eight trophies, including the Premier League title and the Champions League, and made himself a club legend in a blue shirt after spending all of his formative years in red.

Cole’s sale helped to prompt an era of relative mediocrity at Arsenal, who stopped winning trophies at just about the same time the club stopped paying the big bucks in salaries. Chelsea should be wary of such a warning from recent history when committing so fully to slashing their wage bill, as well as the size of the squad.

If Chelsea ever pocket that extra £5 million in add-ons, then Mount’s departure will not only have been an embarrassment, it will have been an unmitigated disaster.

Not all of the blame can be put on the current regime, as the owners  who bought the club from Roman Abrahim movich inherited a situation in which Mount had two years remaining on his contract and had already started to feel undervalued.

But, crucially, the situation was never made better as negotiations passed between co-controlling owner Todd Boehly and co-sporting director Paul Winstanley, and things quickly unravelled to the point that Mount’s future ultimately became a business decision with Chelsea not wanting to risk losing him for free next summer.