The inevitable slamming shut of the transfer window at 7pm on Monday evening completed a remarkable 24 hours of activity for Liverpool. The Premier League champions have often prided themselves on steering clear of the madness that afflicts the top flight twice a year, but they found themselves plonked right in the thick of the drama as the 2025 summer window entered its final moments.
That was, in part, by design. The Reds had been relaxed all summer about their interest in Marc Guehi, believing the longer they left negotiations, the tougher it would be for Crystal Palace to maintain a hardline stance given their captain was inside the final 12 months of his deal.
It was no surprise that negotiations only really ramped after the season had started in mid-August but if the £35m agreement seemed like it was heading for the sort of conclusion many had anticipated back in the early weeks of the window, Guehi's London medical did not lead to the completion of the deal.
Having identified Brighton's Julio Igor as the man to succeed Palace's captain Guehi, the emergence of interest from West Ham United threw a claret-and-blue spanner in the works, leading to the Seagulls man to have a change of heart and plunge Liverpool's pursuit of the England international into jeopardy.
Having maintained a dignified silence while continuing to lead out the FA Cup winners with pride while he awaited developments of his dream move to Anfield, it was hard not to feel sorry for Guehi as he contemplated an 11th-hour breakdown of his switch.
Oliver Glasner had made no secret of his insistence that the 25-year-old would only be allowed to leave after a replacement had been signed and after starting the summer with an interest in Sporting's Ousmane Diomande before seeing links to Evan Ndicka, Manu Akanji and Strahinja Pavlovic, it was clear there was no shortage of effort at Selhurst Park to help facilitate their defender's departure.
Part of that, of course, was due to the respect the club have for the man who skippered them to the first major trophy in their history in May's Cup win over Manchester City, but Palace are also a club who are unable to absorb the loss of England international's whose true value at Selhurst Park exceeds £60m.
That much was made obvious by chairman Steve Parish in the bowels of Wembley after the penalty shootout win over the Reds in the Community Shield last month. The Eagles chief was pragmatic in his acceptance that Guehi could not leave as a free agent next summer, but that stance jarred with Glasner's, who has repeated his determination to retain his talisman in recent days.
"We had a meeting in March and we had an agreement that we're just selling Marc if we have the right replacement in," Glasner said after Sunday's 3-0 win at Aston Villa. "And we wanted to have this replacement at the beginning of the season, the pre-season, to be independent from this situation.
"This was July 9, today is August 31, there is no replacement in the building. So it is clear that one part of the agreement is not fulfilled, that means we can't sell Marc.
"And it's not for Oliver Glasner. It's not a gift or a wish for Oliver Glasner. It's necessary for playing a successful season. We had a great start, we are the first time European football and I think our fans deserve to have the best players available.
"And know, if we don't sell Marc then Marc will accept it. Because he loves Crystal Palace, he loves the team and we feel the appreciation he has and he also feels the same from his side."
For a club usually so adept at avoiding the melodrama of the final moments of the player trading months, the ensuing confusion was quite the departure as claims and counter-claims were made over what would lie in store for Guehi and the biggest move of his career.
But within 45 minutes of the deal sheet being submitted to permit an extra two hours to secure the terms, the deal had collapsed, with Glasner winning the internal struggle with Parish. Those discussions are said to have been particularly frank as the Austrian remained steadfast in his refusal to countenance the sale of the skipper who led them to the FA Cup, the only piece of major silverware in their history.
Glasner reportedly claimed he would quit his job as manager if Guehi was sold, leaving Palace chiefs with the unenviable prospect of having to replace both a Cup-winning manager and club captain - after the deadline - for what was already widely being viewed as a knockdown price of £35m. For Palace, that trade-off simply wasn't worth it, even if there will be some private sympathy for Guehi's misfortune.
Palace were said to have even pieced together an exit video for their outgoing skipper only for the rug to be pulled from the deal at around 7.45pm on Monday evening. Liverpool are expected to return for the England international and could yet snare him as a free agent at the end of this season should the Londoners demand too high an asking price for someone inside the final six months by the time the January window opens.
On more stable footing was the British record move for Alexander Isak, which, having dragged on for weeks, finally reached the end game on Sunday evening when a deal was struck with Newcastle at £125m.
The Sweden international arrived at the AXA Training Centre mid-morning time to undergo his medical before his in-house media duties with LFCTV. He has since flown out from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to join up with his national colleagues.
Having not played since May, the Reds will benefit from Isak featuring prominently for Jon Dahl Tomasson's side as they face Slovenia and Kosovo in World Cup qualifiers and, given the lack of a real pre-season, it might be some time before he is up to the sort of levels that saw him plunder 23 goals for Newcastle last time out. Only Mohamed Salah registered more, for context.
The most expensive player in British football history will immediately come in for external scrutiny given the scale of the figures involved and the manner of his acrimonious Newcastle exit but Liverpool are convinced they are signing one of the finest strikers in world football as his peak years approach.
And fittingly, for a player of such brilliance, the 25-year-old is setting his sights immediately on more silverware for Arne Slot as an exciting start to the new term was supplemented by an enormous statement of intent off the pitch.
"It's a mixture of what the club is building, but what they're building on top of what the club already is," Isak told Liverpoolfc.com. "The history of the club. Me getting the chance to be a part of this, I want to create history. I want to win trophies."
If it was Glasner who won the battle with Parish to retain Guehi then Liverpool can at least lay claim to winning the war with Newcastle.