At the end of the match last night, as the Manchester City players sulked disconsolately round the Etihad offering cursory, miserable handshakes to the Chelsea players and each other, their rivals were bounding around in glee. Chelsea had won. Against all odds. They had defeated the previously invincible, they had felled the mighty, they had in fact shut down completely the most prolific goal-scoring machine in the entire history (!!!!!) of the Premiership. Ok, that’s only 22 years but still no mean feat. Thus the Chelsea players were ebullient. They were joyful, jubilant, celebratory, over-the-moon, flying on air, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

Yet in all this joy, one Chelsea face stood out. The scorer of the only goal of the match, no less. And what a goal it was. For only he, Branislav Ivanovic, among a sea of ecstatic team-mates, looked like he was just about to board a ship to a Siberian Gulag at the insistence of a Cossack’s bayonet.

Yet the inherent misery of the East European psyche really should be put aside in the wake of what was an amazing game of football. Most of which I saw. Not all though. So I missed the opening 20 minutes. Or ‘the only bit where Man City looked good’ as it will come to be known. But I had to watch what I could of ‘the battle of the bank balances’.

These two teams represent ‘the change’ in football. That’s putting it very nicely. Others might say they represent ‘everything that is bad, awful, dire, immoral and vile about football’. Both teams have been ‘bought’ at massive expense by owners with bottomless pockets who simply buy up every available player and plenty who wouldn’t be available but can be extricated from clubs/contracts by the application of masses of cash. Ending up with a situation where the wage bill alone at Manchester City exceeds their annual turnover. Chelsea’s financial situation is a little better, but only because they’ve had 5 more years under Abramovich than City have had under the Emirate Sheiks to come up with any number of ‘vehicles’ in which the Dodgy Russian has basically been ‘buying’ the club’s debt in various devious and dastardly ways.

Hence Jose Morinho accusing Manchester City of failing in the criteria of the ‘financial fair play’ rules. Rules so complicated, convoluted and intricate that Deloitte’s can’t understand them, nor the highest courts in the land. Only Michel Platini knows the secrets those rules (allegedly) contain. And he’s not telling.

So football is ruled by teams who have unlimited financial resources. These two, Real Madrid, the Italian giants, Paris St Germain. And here’s a sentence that will never be uttered in any other context: only the Germans do it properly.

However, on the upside, we get players over here that are brilliant. Eden Hazard last night was described as Messiesque by the pundits. And the little fucker was just that. And he was just one of a dozen fantastic talents on show in the game.

The result also makes the league battle way more interesting that it would have been if City had won. Its now a 3-horse race. Spurs are a bit below, in more of a 3-legged race. Can frugal Arsenal keep up with the might and wealth that currently keeps knocking on their door? Its like the paper shop on the corner trying to keep out Tescos. Only time will tell.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx