Middlesbrough priced Nottingham Forest out of a Patrick Bamford reunion, with the former Chelsea striker eventually moving to Leeds United.
That's according to Bamford himself, who has been speaking about how his move to Elland Road two summers ago came about.
Bamford started his career at the City Ground before moving to Chelsea in January 2012.
After six loan spells away from Stamford Bridge he joined Boro in January 2017, returning to the club he had enjoyed a fine spell at three seasons previously and reuniting with Aitor Karanka.
Karanka left at the end of the season and joined Forest in January 2018.
He oversaw a revamp of the Reds' squad ahead of a promotion challenge, bringing in Joao Carvalho for a club-record fee of £13 million and wanted Bamford, too.
But Boro scuppered another reunion for the pair, with Bamford eventually joining Leeds for around £7m.
"It was actually quite strange," Bamford told Leeds' Twitter account. "I thought I was staying at Middlesbrough.
"I originally knew that Forest had put a bid in, as Aitor was there and he used to manage me at Middlesbrough.
"Middlesbrough put a stupid figure on it and I think it was double what Leeds actually ended up paying, so there was clearly something going on there.
"That was when the first offer came in but it didn't really change anything for me as it was just two clubs talking. Then I heard about Leeds being interested; I remember my agent telling me that Leeds were interested and that obviously pricked my ears out.
"But then I was playing in a friendly against Sunderland, at Boro, and it actually got cancelled halfway through. I was supposed to start and Tony Pulis (Middlesbrough manager at the time) came over to me and said 'let's have a chat. I am taking you out of the starting team and you know why, don't you?'
"I said: 'no.' He then told me that Leeds had put a bid in and it had been accepted.
"I was like: 'really'. He was really good about it, to be fair. A lot of people have bad stories about Tony Pulis but I cannot speak highly enough about him, as he was honest, told me they had accepted a bid and thanked me for my time and everything.
"That was pretty much it. Once he had said it was the club's decision, that was it.
"After that, my head was only focused on Leeds. Obviously there was final details and stuff that needed to be sorted, but that was pretty much the whole story."
