Chelsea were not expected to have a busy January transfer window, but on deadline day the Premier League champions shelled out £50 million for Liverpool's star striker Fernando Torres, while a deal worth over £21m was finally agreed with Benfica to sign defender David Luiz.
Such spending is a statement of intent from cowner Roman Abramovich - he is not prepared to allow his club to lose touch with their title rivals and he is ready for a new generation of stars to spearhead the resurgence.
It had been largely acknowledged that a reining in of spending was on the cards in the coming years for the Blues, who signed only Ramires and Yossi Benayoun prior to the start of the new season, and just Daniel Sturridge, Yuri Zhirkov and Ross Turnbull in the previous summer.
But with Chelsea in fourth place in the table, 10 points behind unbeaten league leaders Manchester United and four behind big spenders Manchester City in third, Abramovich's hand has been forced into the market in a big way.
His last minute outlay of £71m, which accounts for a healthy chunk of the total £225m spent by Premier League clubs during January on the same day a loss of over £68m was announced by the club, recalls the sort of money he made readily availailable at the beginning of his reign as Chelsea owner.
By April 2005, the Russian billionaire, who took over in the summer of 2003, had spent an unprecedented £213.3m on players, including Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho, Claude Makelele and Arjen Robben, as Jose Mourinho built a squad capable of delivering Premier League titles and domestic cup success.
But such spending could not deliver the Champions League, which has always been known to be Abramovich's most coveted piece of silverware, while many of those big money signings have moved on or are approaching the twilight of their careers.
Carvalho has reunited with Mourinho at Real Madrid – a move Robben had previously made before becoming a dominant force for Bayern Munich – and Makelele has returned to his native France as he approaches retirement.
The likes of Drogba and Anelka remain, but at 32 and 31 respectively, their time at the club could be on the wane - the latter was even rumoured to be a makeweight in an earlier offer for Torres, while it has been suggested that the former could return to Marseille before the end of his career.
Little wonder then that Abramovich has allowed Carlo Ancelotti to move to secure one of the Premier League's most established and gifted goalscorers in Torres, while shoring up his defence by bringing in Luiz, whose introduction allows Ivanovic to move to right-back in place of the unconvincing Jose Bosingwa and the ageing Paulo Ferreira.
While Torres has looked out of sorts for the majority of the first half of the season and his performances for World Cup winners Spain at South Africa 2010 fell short of expectations, there is no doubting his credentials as a world-class Premier League striker - his seven goals against Chelsea over the years he had been at Liverpool are more than enough evidence of his ability.
In spite of his poor form and a spell blighted by injury, Torres has still hit the target nine times this season in a Liverpool side that was ailing under previous manager Roy Hodgson - the same amount of goals scored by Chelsea's top marksmen Drogba and Florent Malouda.
Luiz, meanwhile, has been considered hot property across Europe since establishing himself in the Benfica starting XI after joining the club in 2007, and could be set to cement himself a place in the Brazil national team setup for years to come.
With Torres aged 26, and Luiz younger still at 23, Abramovich has invested heavily in players of the highest calibre who can usher in a new generation of success for Chelsea and in the short-term can give the club's title charge and Champions League ambitions a much-needed resurgence.
If more signings of a similar ilk are to follow in the summer, who knows the level of success Chelsea can achieve in years to come.
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