The combined cost of the two starting line-ups was a little shy of £1billion, so on paper this was not just a title showdown but a billion pound game: the ultimate manifestation of Premier League spending power.
On grass, it was something entirely different. One of the most lavishly assembled non-events imaginable, in which Chelsea, needing to throw the sink at Manchester City at a point of title jeopardy, were equipped with neither a gameplan nor even the right personnel.
Chelsea’s best player, Mason Mount, was on the bench until the 81st minute. Chelsea’s most expensive player, Romelu Lukaku, was redundant because no one would risk a 20-yard pass in his general direction.
Manchester City all-but saw off Chelsea as a title threat with their 1-0 victory on Saturday
The Blues aren't the same team who lifted the Champions League, and couldn't muster a fight
The sight of Thomas Tuchel leaping out of his seat and fulminating delighted the TV commentators, as if making a noise when nobody is listening adds the remotest value.
Arsenal’s performance against City on New Year’s Day had demonstrated that rapid ‘offensive transitions’, as Tuchel likes to call them, are the only means of contending with City’s process of suffocation. There were next to none of these from Chelsea.
There are mitigating circumstances. A global pandemic. An Africa Cup of Nations. Injuries which have left them with a 37-year-old at the centre of a five-man defensive line. A need for time to cohere a squad built by four previous managers in as many years.
But for a starting XI which cost almost £400million, this was a sickly shade of beige. As Tuchel closes in on the first anniversary of his appointment at Stamford Bridge, his side remain a speck in City’s rear-view mirror. ‘They are the European champions. How incredible they are,’ Guardiola said of Chelsea, somehow maintaining a straight face.
Blues boss Thomas Tuchel faces a tough task to reign City in at all, let alone this season
It is going to take competence, cussedness and no small amount of competitive anger to haul City back at any time in the next few years and restore a competitive edge to the Premier League. A century of points, or thereabouts, is regulation for them now.
They are on course for 96 points, to go with the 100 they got in 2017-18 and 98 the season after. Breaking through 90 points was always a monumental achievement for Manchester United, whose best in their imperious 1990s era was 92 (and even that came in a 42-game season).
Such are the rewards of laying deep foundations beneath a club. To hear Guardiola describe how he knew Kevin De Bruyne innately having spent six seasons with him was a reminder of that. City have been refining their player acquisition system since the days when Carlo Ancelotti was managing Chelsea.
The squad is so complete that paying out £100m for Jack Grealish is a minor affliction. None of it is rocket science, though simple common sense will do when so many of your challengers lack that basic commodity.
Manchester United have spent billions since Sir Alex Ferguson left but without the remotest level of competency. The diminution of that club is nothing less than a scandal. Arsenal are even further away from the title stage they once coveted as a club of global
