Chelsea’s summer transfer business was extensive, and ended in remarkable circumstances.

As Enzo Fernandez left in record-equalling deal, Monaco backed out of a written agreement to sell Lamine Camara as the summer window closed.

It feels an awfully long time ago that Chelsea sold Marc Cucurella to Real Madrid, which kickstarted a busy summer of spending and selling ahead of Xabi Alonso’s first campaign as manager.

Here, assesses whether the window was a success or a failure from Chelsea’s perspective, and how well it sets them up for the season ahead.

It was a belated but sensible decision of BlueCo to change their transfer strategy at last and finally acknowledge an added injection of experience was needed.

The signings of Danny Welbeck, 35, and Jordan Henderson, 36, were not as impactful as getting the pursuit of Sunderland’s Granit Xhaka over the line would have been, but they will set standards off the pitch and add leadership to a group that sorely lacked it last year when Chelsea broke the English record for the most red cards in a single season and regularly lost leads in games.

Already, Morgan Rogers is striking up a fine partnership with his former Manchester City academy pal Cole Palmer, and while Chelsea’s £117m spend on him was steep, he will surely prove a good signing.

So will Maxence Lacroix, a Premier League-proven centre-back, and Geovany Quenda, an attacker with very exciting attributes and who is still only 19 so has much to fine-tune.

The U-turn on the goalkeeper situation after the Fulham match was a change of direction not previously planned but a sensible call. Signing Emi Martinez and shipping Robert Sanchez out to Como represents a slight risk in that Martinez is 33 now and, possibly, past his best. But he is an upgrade on Sanchez and, at £7.5m, the transfer was certainly justifiable.

He will also add a winning mentality and a level of experience to combine nicely with the arrivals of Welbeck and Henderson.

It is too early to tell whether the injured Marco Palestra will prove a good signing but Pep Chavarria was an affordable left-back arrival at £16.3m and another methodical pick from the Chelsea hierarchy.

Recouping a British transfer record-equalling fee of £125m in the sale of Fernandez represented fine negotiating skills and a financial success for Chelsea on a player who clearly, for months, had wanted to leave.

The club’s other sales and loan exits are, with loan fees and if all add-ons and conditional obligations are met, due to pocket Chelsea a world football record £500m. They are the best sellers in the game and demonstrated that again, smashing their own sales record and replenishing the squad efficiently.

The most disappointing outcome of Chelsea’s transfer window was that they failed to do what they insisted all window they would: bring in a replacement for Enzo Fernandez in midfield if he is sold.

There is no denying they found themselves on the wrong side of fortune there, as a last-minute deal to sign Lamine Camara for £47m saw Monaco pull out in the final minutes of the window despite a written club-to-club agreement.

This left Chelsea outraged at Monaco’s behaviour and decision not to honour their word… but more significantly leaves Chelsea short in midfield after Fernandez’s sale, with only five central midfielders, at least two of which are highly injury-prone.

Perhaps Chelsea could have added another centre-back, too. Lacroix was a good signing but Wesley Fofana had a very poor season last term and Josh Acheampong remains inexperienced. Another wise head at the back would not have gone amiss.

Their decision-making with sales and loan exits cannot be criticised whatsoever. It was unprecedentedly impressive.

Chelsea’s summer included a shift in their transfer strategy but a continuation of the wider BlueCo model.

Even after they failed to find the final piece of the jigsaw in midfield in the last remaining minutes of the window, they enter the season with a stronger squad than the one with which they finished last season. This and financial viability are the criteria for a successful transfer window.

Chelsea could do with picking up where they left off with a starting-level midfield reinforcement in January.

That will be a particularly key priority for January rather than next summer if Chelsea are looking short of quality or quantity in the middle of the park this autumn.

A centre-back is probably still needed, too, though this will be more dependent on how the first few months of the season go. The midfield addition is very much the priority.