Reality

[Letters]

A huge oversight in this thread. Chelsea were looking terrible some months back under AVB. The players wouldn't play for him and he couldn't control his players or get a performance out of them. Roberto di Matteo came in and turned it around without spending a penny. The same crop of players but they play differently. If money was the key factor AVB would have been celebrating with the Chelsea players on the pitch tonight.

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.