There is one common reason that links the fact that Chelsea are in the title race and Manchester City are not. Cole Palmer.
City are an aging side in desperate need of a world-class youngster to give them freshness and spark.
That player should have been Cole Palmer.
Chelsea were a chaotic club in desperate need of an on-field leader to build a team around.
That player is Cole Palmer.
Pep Guardiola's decision to let Palmer join Chelsea looked highly questionable even last season, when City won a fourth straight title and the young Mancunian he released was the standout player in a wildly inconsistent Blues team.
Now that Palmer is the standout in an excellent Chelsea team, and now that City has suddenly imploded – winning just once in nine games – that chicken is well in place.
And yes, yes, the Rodri injury. But City's extraordinary collapse is not just about the absence of their Ballon d'Or-winning midfielder.
Etihad chiefs are this week celebrating the tenth anniversary of their City Football Academy, which has “developed 40 players for the men's senior team and generated fees of up to £300m”.
City boast that “seven Premier League clubs and 12 Championship teams currently have a CFA player”.
FOOTBALL FREE BETTS AND SIGN UP DEALS
That's all well and good, except that Palmer – one of two world-class players to come through the CFA along with Phil Foden – is currently tearing it up for a team higher in the table than City.
And for an initial fee of £40 million, which now seems like an absolute bargain.
These mistakes happen in football. Only they usually happen at Chelsea and certainly not at Guardiola.
Look around at Chelsea's main rivals and you will find Kevin De Bruyne, flogged by Chelsea at the age of 22, who has been Manchester City's best player for years.
And you find Mo Salah, sent away by Chelsea at the age of 23, who has been Liverpool's best player for years.
You'll also find Declan Rice, rejected by Chelsea at the age of 14, who is now the heartbeat of Arsenal's £105m midfield.
When Jose Mourinho was Chelsea boss, he didn't think De Bruyne or Salah were useless. Just not good enough for his first team at that time and certainly not for future Footballers of the Year.
The same goes for City and Palmer – who got my vote as Footballer of the Year over City's Foden, who won the award because most voters seemed to find it more impressive to be a great player in a great team than a great player in a great team. a bad team.
Guardiola rated Palmer so highly that, while other promising City youngsters were loaned out, he was jealously guarded by the Etihad boss, given first-team football and asked to remain patient at City, just like Foden.
But in the summer of last year, Palmer was 21 and ready to become a major Premier League footballer.
Guardiola had promised him substantially more football and all was looking well last August when Palmer scored a stunning goal at Wembley in the Community Shield against Arsenal and scored again in the European Super Cup against Sevilla.
But the following week City spent £55.5m on Jeremy Doku – who, although not a comparable player to Palmer, was another attacking player, the same age as Palmer, who City rated with a higher transfer value.
This arrival surprised Palmer and his advisors and was the straw that broke the camel's back when the player decided he wanted to leave.
Guardiola didn't want him to leave, but he also didn't want to keep a player against his will, knowing his first-team opportunities would remain limited at City last season.
Furthermore, the Doku transfer meant City had to balance the books to comply with the ever-pesky Premier League profit and sustainability rules.
Doku is a decent player; a winger who can improve significantly, but currently has no end product and is often a substitute.
He is certainly not in the same league as Palmer, whose two penalties and one glorious assist helped Chelsea beat league leaders Liverpool with a statement comeback win at Spurs on Sunday.
After that 4-3 victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca – who had worked with Palmer as a coach in City's youth academy – was enthusiastic about his talisman.
Particularly interesting was Maresca's admission that Palmer, who has scored 12 of 12 penalties in the Premier League, does not practice penalty kicks.
The idea of not practicing penalty kicks is remarkable in modern times. England did not practice penalties and they kept losing shootouts.
Under Gareth Southgate they practiced and studied them virtually to PhD level and started winning shootouts.
But Maresca says Palmer is “not normal.” He is “not like us.” Normal players practice and get better. Even very good players practice and get better.
The absolute best – the innate, blessed, ice-cold, ready-made geniuses – are different.
The strange thing is that Guardiola – himself an undisputed genius – didn't realize he had a real genius in his squad. For Manchester City and for Chelsea that is the difference.
Ashworth's departure is so unbearable
MANY highly successful businessmen have entered the world of football and made it big, but Sir Jim Ratcliffe is taking this trend to new limits.
Sir Jim, literally England's most successful businessman, has gone to Manchester United, England's biggest football club, and within a year has turned it into the biggest pig's ear imaginable.
This summer's decision to hand Erik ten Hag a new contract and major say in transfer policy, only to sack him nine games into the season, was embarrassing enough.
But now the departure of Dan Ashworth – the world-class sporting director who was plucked from scrappy Newcastle United in a supposedly all-powerful coup – just five months into his role is truly unbearable.
Ashworth had an excellent record of appointing managers: Gareth Southgate at England, Graham Potter at Brighton and Eddie Howe at Newcastle.
Yet Ratcliffe apparently ignored Ashworth's advice when he appointed Ruben Amorim.
Maybe Amorim will be a hit, maybe not.
But Ratcliffe's blunders over Ten Hag and Ashworth cost United around £25 million.
The chief of multi-billionaire Ineos is currently trying to cut back on some of his own massive waste by charging children £66 to watch United and laying off parts of the club's hard-working staff.
And that capitalism is on the move, baby.
'Smallest' clubs hit high notes for bosses
THIS summer Bournemouth sold their star man, Dominic Solanke. Brentford saw off their goalscoring machine, Ivan Toney. And Fulham cashed in on their best player, Joao Palhinha.
Yet all three clubs – arguably the three 'smallest' in the Premier League – have improved and sit in the top half of the table, looking down on some bigger, richer sides.
A huge honor should go to managers Andoni Iraola, Thomas Frank and Marco Silva.
Chesterfield promoting Blues is a new twist
FOOTBALL clubs don't actually need expensive PR gurus.
Win competitions and people in the media will generally write and say positive things. When you lose matches, people in the media will generally write and say negative things.
Yet Chelsea have apparently hired a top spin doctor, Nerissa Chesterfield, who was director of communications under Rishi Sunak's regime in Downing Street. Which went well.
Maybe she can help send away all those unwanted members of Chelsea's 'bomb squad'. To Rwanda perhaps?
Cornering the market
Let's not be snobbish about Arsenal's reliance on set goals.
If it was good enough for Stoke City, it should be good enough for the footballing chatterati of Stoke Newington.
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