Reality

[Power n Glory]

Chelsea's starting lineup, and how much they cost:

Cech £7m (and that was quite a while back when that was a LOT for a 'keeper)
Cole £5m (+ Gallas, they bid £16m)
David Luiz £26m
Bosingwa £16.2m
Cahill £7m
Bertrand - bought young
Lampard £11m
Mikel £16m
Mata 23.5m
Drogba £24m
Kalou £8m

£143.7m - 4 players in their starting 11 cost more than Arsenal's record transfer fee.

And while we're at it, Chelsea's bench last night:

22 Turnbull - Free
19 Ferreira - 13.2m
05 Essien - £24.4m
06 Romeu - £4.3m
15 Malouda - £13.5m
09 Torres - £50m
23 Sturridge - £4m

£109m. Sat on the bench. 2 players on their bench cost more than Arsenal's record transfer fee.

Yes, yes,, you need a good manager to get all that talent to play well as a team, instil team spirit. Fine. Although top managers generally cost a lot of money too so ultimately it does all come back to that. I agree with a lot of your post but it comes down to this: would Chelsea have won the CL without Abramovic? Would they have won their titles without Abramovic? Would City be champions without their billionaire backers? Would they balls.

To an extent clubs have always bought success of course but never so overtly as in the modern era and never by spending such obscene amounts of money.

That's not even the argument and only deals with the first paragraph. I agree they'd never be able to win it without Abramovich's millions because they wouldn't be in the competition full stop. But because they have managed to win it that way, it shouldn't distract us of the fact that Wenger has played in this competition for 15 seasons and never won it. Plus, that argument about top managers costing money is rubbish because Wenger is one of the higest paid managers in the league. Mourinho had no rep real European rep when he won with Porto, Pep was promoted from the reserve team, Rafa won with Liverpool in his first season, di Matteo is bloody caretaker manager. How much the manager earns is a mute point. When Wenger had the double winning sides and the Invincibles playing, he should have won the competition. He couldn't even win a UEFA Cup final.