Derby and Clowes were well positioned to do exactly that, with the Rams owner having already signed off on a budget and committed to signings while the takeover attempt was unfolding.
The £6m it took to bring Bobby Clark in on a permanent deal from RB Salzburg, the loan to buy agreement to get Sam Szmodics for £2.7m from Ipswich, and the sum of around £600,000 it took to get Alex Mowatt from West Bromwich Albion were all funded by Clowes when he thought he was about to sell the club.
"This is why he's such an incredible owner. He thought the takeover was going to happen, he knew he was never going to get a penny back for all of that money he spent on those players and he still did it," Pearce said.
"He could have quite easily, on 1 July, said to us and said to John [head coach John Eustace], 'look, I think this is going through, the signs are the club is going to be sold, you're just going to have to wait because every penny I put in into transfers now I'm not going to get back'.
"And he didn't. He backed it regardless and that's why we're such a strong position."
Clowes had long been open about his desire to bring in new investors to help fund the club's push to return to the Premier League, and the agreement with Al-Sheikh – who, alongside being a Saudi government official, is a hugely influential figure in the world of boxing - had been seen as a significant boost for a side that finished just outside the play-off places last season.
When the takeover failed, Clowes took Derby County off the market and focused efforts on strengthening the club he nearly offloaded.
The £4m spent on getting David Ozoh from Crystal Palace was the biggest outlay - alongside a list of free transfers and loans, which included a deadline day reunion with Eiran Cashin - after the aborted deal.
Asked if the disrupted summer had "stalled" the club's aims of Premier League promotion, Pearce replied: "Not in the slightest, otherwise we wouldn't have spent all the money we've spent.
"We want to push on. We want progression this season."
