Balogun walked away after midnight, and Chelsea lost their Enzo replacement because of it

Folarin Balogun was on Merseyside by lunchtime on Tuesday. Everton had agreed a £40 million fee with Monaco, the medical was booked, and the club had spent the summer looking for exactly this. By the small hours of Wednesday morning he was still a Monaco player, Everton had one recognised striker left on their books, and Chelsea had lost a midfielder they thought they had signed.

How a £40 million deal died in the last hour

Something showed up in the medical during the afternoon. Everton went back to Monaco, renegotiated the terms and submitted a revised deal sheet, which is the mechanism that buys a club up to two extra hours past the 11pm deadline to finish the paperwork. Balogun used some of that time to change his mind. He walked away after midnight, having been in the building all day.

Everton are down to one striker

David Moyes had already sold Beto to Fiorentina, hours earlier on the same day, and Iliman Ndiaye to Manchester City earlier in the window. When the Balogun medical started to wobble, Everton rang Manchester United about Joshua Zirkzee on loan and Aston Villa about Tammy Abraham. United had a change of heart with roughly an hour of the window left. Abraham preferred to stay at Villa Park. That leaves Thierno Barry as the only recognised senior centre-forward at the club, with Brennan Johnson the nearest thing to cover.

Chelsea are the other casualty

Monaco had spent the same afternoon agreeing to sell Lamine Camara to Chelsea. The fee was £47 million, the contract six years, the player a 22-year-old Senegal midfielder bought to replace Enzo Fernandez. Chelsea had it in writing. What Monaco would not do was sign the deal sheet before 11pm, and once the deadline had gone they withdrew from the agreement, because the renegotiated Balogun sale had put them where they needed to be financially. Then Balogun walked, and Monaco finished the night having sold neither player.

Sky Sports chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol put Chelsea’s position simply: “Chelsea don’t believe this is the way clubs should conduct business.” The club felt Monaco had behaved in an extraordinary and deeply unprofessional way.

Chelsea had a way out and did not take it

Here is the part that will sting at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea had agreed to sell Enzo Fernandez to Manchester City for £125 million on a five-year deal, and when Camara fell through they could have pulled out of that too. They honoured it instead. Xabi Alonso now starts a season without European football and without a direct replacement for the midfielder he has just sold.

Keep up with the rest of the deadline day fallout