There have been two official denials from Real Madrid this summer that they want to sign Neymar, plus one along the same lines about Kylian Mbappe which says everything about how the club have been put in their place by Paris Saint-Germain.

The Qatari owners of PSG might have broken the transfer market last summer with their signing of Neymar, but you cannot argue with the robustness of their approach to Madrid, and their president Florentino Perez, who once thought he could get any player in the world. Now the European champions seem strangely reluctant to upset PSG’s owners, and as he watches from wherever he has spent Russia 2018, Roman Abramovich will notice.

Perez smells weakness at Chelsea – a messy managerial change, and an owner at odds with the British government. In the past, Perez has never dared to target Chelsea’s best players as he has with Manchester United and Arsenal, but the picture has changed. Perez is under pressure to replace his marquee name Cristiano Ronaldo and Eden Hazard is the high-performing star that he might just be able to secure.