This weekend the two clear favorites to win the Premier League met when Chelsea, with their perfect 4-0 start, visited Manchester City. The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich vs the Arab Emirates billionaire Sheikh Mansour. On paper the squads are evenly matched with Man City’s current squad costing $564 Million and Chelsea’s costing $560 Million to assemble per the Daily Mail‘s recent analysis. (Note: these figures do not include player salaries!) However after a red hot start to the season and a near perfect transfer window notably bringing in Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, Chelsea are the clear favorite to win the league this year. Prior to kick off the London bookmakers wouldn’t even double your money if you picked Chelsea to win the league after only 4 games, while Man City is second favorite at around 3-1. The match has been nicknamed El Cashico for the big money owners and teams involved.
As expected Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea came out set up to defend well and were well organized. The game ended a fair and entertaining 1-1 draw, though with few scoring opportunities as two heavyweights sparred. The post match sparring was just as entertaining; “I think we played during 90 minutes against a small team trying to defend, trying to keep 10 players in front of their goal and [City were] a team that wanted to win from the beginning,” Manuel Pellegrini, the Manchester City manager, told a news conference. “I think we played against exactly the same team we played against Stoke here,” he said. “It will be very difficult for us to score. Finally we could score.” That sounds hard. No wonder Chelsea is the favorite.
