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She is now the most powerful woman in English football – and responsible for Chelsea's dramatic change of fortunes in the transfer market.

Roman Abramovich's “right hand woman” is Marina Granovskaia.

He has trusted her implicitly for the past 17 years and she has now become one of the most influential figures behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge, negotiating deals and helping the Blues to another successful transfer window.

They sold Andre Schurrle and Ryan Bertrand and bought Juan Cuandrado on deadline day to earn a tidy profit of £6m.

And that comes after last year's brilliant dealing which saw them bring in Diego Costa and Cesc Fabegras and move on David Luiz and Juan Mata.

Despite the club spending £123.3m over the last two seasons, they have made £127.7m from player departures with Granovskaia heavily involved.

The 39-year-old is listed as one of Chelsea's three directors on their official website.

One club source described her as “Tough, fair, beautiful and absolutely brilliant at her job.”

Chelsea's 2014/15 transfer window figures (summer and winter) £123.3m Incoming £127.7m Outgoing £4.43m PROFIT Transfermarkt.co.uk

She has always been heavily involved in the financial running of the club.

But since the departure of former CEO Ron Gourlay she has taken on an even more active role alongside chairman Bruce Buck.

Her biography on the Chelsea website reads: “She graduated in 1997 from Moscow State University with honours and the same year started her career at Sibneft, the oil company formerly owned by Roman Abramovich.

In pictures: January's done deals

“She has worked closely with Mr Abramovich as a senior adviser over the last 17 years, looking after his various assets and interests."

She moved from the Russian capital to London shortly after the acquisition of Chelsea Football Club in 2003 and since 2010 has acted as a representative of the owner at the club and in support of the board of directors.

“She joined the board of Chelsea FC plc and the Football Club Board in June 2013.”

Chelsea are the master negotiators - analysis by Ed Malyon

Andre Schurrle signed for Chelsea in 2013 for £18million. He started just 20 games for the club, completely lost the trust of his manager and then was somehow sold for £24million in 2015.

This allowed Jose Mourinho to bring in Juan Cuadrado, a player he actually wanted, and left a little bit of change to spare.

It's good, it's clever and for Chelsea's title rival(s) it's ominous, but it's far from a one-off. The Blues have developed a rather fortunate habit of selling their players for the best possible prices, with the £50million received for David Luiz the most obvious example.

In the last year alone, they have sold four players unwanted by Mourinho - Schurrle, Luiz, Juan Mata and Romelu Lukaku - for some £140million. This is astonishingly good work, and has allowed them to not only strengthen, bringing in a much-needed frontman in Diego Costa, but also to hold onto their other key assets.

With those sales in mind, it is important to note that Marina Granovskaia has been at the forefront of many of the club's key negotiations in recent years, particularly the one that brought Jose Mourinho back to Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea's season-by-season transfer expenditure - and what they've made Transfermarkt.co.uk

The west London club have sailed close at times, but they've beautifully navigated themselves through the dangerous straits of FFP unscathed, deciding to focus on a clear two-part strategy:

First has been concentrating the quality of their squad, having fewer players than some rivals but making them 8 out of 10 players rather than having a glut of 7s. The deal to bring in Cuadrado necessitated the departures of Mo Salah as well as Schurrle, but with neither wanted by the manager and the transfer spend coming out as a rough break-even, this perfectly adheres to their plan. Upgrade in ability, no money lost.

Secondly has been their buying up of talented youth players, who are then developed (largely on loan) and then either sold or promoted to the first team. More commonly it has been the former, but with big profits made on the likes of Kevin de Bruyne (two Chelsea starts) and huge improvements reaped on the likes of Thibaut Courtois (now one of the world's top keepers) it's fair to say their strategy is working.

And if Granovskaia can continue to engineer huge profits on fringe players than it will continue to do so.