Cash giants just have to spend again

CheLsea against Manchester City — a match- up that is usually one of the Premier League’s biggest thanks to some money that has been very well spent.

More will be required to ensure it features potential champions once again and is not — to outsiders at least — mainly about the title hopes of a team elsewhere.

The broadcasters would have been licking their lips in June when the fixture computer paired two of the most successful sides together for a run-in head-to-head.

Nine of the last 15 Premier League titles had been won by these clubs. Both in the top three in six of the last nine years.

Their meetings had developed into decisive clashes thanks to the investment of Chelsea’s owner Roman abramovich and City’s sheik Mansour.

There was still some significance last night, especially for top-four chasing Chelsea, though not quite as much as in more recent times.

It was sweltering stamford Bridge’s turn to sample the eerie, muted atmosphere of behindclosed-doors football for the first time. Liverpool was the place to be for real excitement.

For differing reasons, City and Chelsea have been among the clubs left trailing in Liverpool’s wake this season.

City might be kicking themselves, especially when they remain so capable of blowing sides away. ask arsenal and Burnley, thumped since the restart. Their failure to replace Vincent Kompany last summer was baffling, especially as they wanted a centre back, pursuing harry Maguire before he joined Manchester United. That decision was quickly compounded by aymeric Laporte’s long-term knee injury.

a defensive vulnerability absent in the previous two seasons has been well and truly present in this one. Chelsea’s opener, gifted by Benjamin Mendy but brilliantly taken by Christian Pulisic, was the latest example.

The result? Too many costly points dropped, Liverpool turning a predicted two-horse race into a one-horse canter.

There is mitigation for Chelsea. Frank Lampard took over a club with a transfer ban and who had also lost their best player, eden hazard. The odds were against a top-four finish despite his belief.

With seven games to go, Chelsea are where many thought they would not be: in the top four with their fate in their hands.

They have already made moves in the transfer market to sign hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner. There will be even more Chelsea spending, too.

statement- of-intent responses will be required from both clubs to jump from distant chasers to genuine challengers to Liverpool next season.