sport news Real Madrid's obsession with Kylian Mbappe weakened their summer transfer window

Real Madrid had a largely underwhelming transfer window for the second consecutive summer, but took solace in the belief that they will more than make up for it when they sign Kylian Mbappe without a transfer fee in 10 months' time.

The club anticipate an early June 2022 presentation at a very-nearly finished, remodelled Santiago Bernabeu, with Mbappe's new No 7 shirt flying off the shelves of the club shop and the ink barely dry on a new shirt deal with main sponsors Emirates.

That scenario, plus the arrival of the exceptionally talented 18-year-old midfielder Eduardo Camavinga on deadline day, and the chaos at Barcelona softened the blow of missing out on Mbappe this season.

'Reprogram your dreams for later' he posted on social media before later deleting it.

He has already turned down at least three offers of a new contract in Paris – the last of which would have seen him earn £30m (€35m) net a season – so Madrid are confident he will resist for the remainder of this campaign and pick-up his signing-on fee next summer in Spain.

The pursuit of Mbappe was doomed to failure from the off. Madrid were uncharacteristically public about their first offer of £137m (€160m) because they knew it would be knocked back.

Worse than rejecting it, PSG's Qatari ownership didn't even respond. A second – also very public – offer of £154m (€180m) in add-ons was also met with silence.

After the first bid PSG's sporting director Leonardo called Madrid's behavior 'illegal' and 'disrespectful' and said the offer was nowhere near enough, and that sparked some degree of optimism at Madrid. 

At least they had been noticed and Leonardo had hinted that perhaps there was a magic number that would release Mbappe.

But when that second offer was also ignored and PSG coach Mauricio Pochettino picked Mbappe to start Sunday's

read more from dailymail.....