AS two wise men once said: the line between stupid and smart is so thin.
This philosophical gem comes from the mockumentary – if you like, rockumentary – Spinal Tap, in which David St Hubbins' character is slightly brighter than bandmate Nigel Tufnel.
In the summer of 2022, it was Nottingham Forest who were cast as idiots after bringing in 31 players to aid their bid for a successful return to the English top flight.
Meanwhile, Chelsea's £250 million spend on eight stars was widely seen as a positive sign that the new owners would do their best to maintain the Blues in the style they had become accustomed to under Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
The two clubs have gone back and forth on the dumb/smart scale in the intervening two and a half years.
But if Forest finish the season in the top four, and Chelsea don't, it will be pretty clear where they stand.
That feels like a real possibility after the recent results.
When Chelsea sat in second place for most of December, boss Enzo Maresca played calmly and insisted his side were not title contenders.
After five Premier League games without a win, Maresca's attitude now looks less like a mind game to take the pressure off his players, which hasn't worked, and more like a frank assessment of their level.
Forest chief Nuno Espirito Santo has also preached caution, but he and his players have maintained their strong start to the season.
The draw against leaders Liverpool on Tuesday was the latest proof that they can compete with the big boys and have a good chance of staying at bay.
It was tempting to tar these clubs with the same brush, with Forest as the poor man's Chelsea – despite owner Evangelos Marinakis being a billionaire.
When the Blues forked out an unprecedented sum of more than £300 million in January 2023, they firmly joined Forest in farcical, rather than fantasy, football.
Graham Potter and then Mauricio Pochettino were fired because they didn't know enough about it.
While at Forest, Steve Cooper paid the same price in December 2023 as the club dug in for another relegation battle.
That was before Forest were handed four points for breaching profit and sustainability rules over their spending in the 2022-2023 period.
Such a miscalculation would have seemed even stupider if they had fallen.
Chelsea's owners avoided any fine by selling a number of hotels to themselves for £76.5 million just before the 2022-2023 deadline. It showed that they were at least smart about accounting.
Last June, Forest demonstrated that they were thinking about how to game the system.
Goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos made a shock trip to Newcastle, while Elliot Anderson traveled the other way.
Some claim Chelsea pulled similar PSR-dodging pranks on Aston Villa and also sold their women's team to the owners.
As a result, it appears both clubs have avoided Premier League charges for breaching the rules in the three seasons up to and including 2023-2024.
But during this campaign, Forest have not only overtaken the Blues, but for the time being have overtaken them where it really counts: on the pitch.
Forest are the Premier League club with the eighth highest net spend – over £215 million – over the past five seasons, despite having only been in the top flight for three of them.
But that is well behind market leaders Chelsea, with a net spend of £800 million. And Marinakis gets a lot more bang for his buck than Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly.
Take goalkeepers for example. Please bring some goalkeepers with you, as Chelsea might have said when they had EIGHT on their books in August.
But none of them – not first choice Robert Sanchez (£25m starting price), back-up Filip Jorgensen (£20.5m), incoming Mike Penders (£17m), nor any of the on-loan duo Djordje Petrovic (£12 .5m) and Kepa (£71.6m in 2018, still a world record for a goalkeeper) – is as good as Forest's stopper Matz Sels.
The Belgium international, who arrived at the City Ground for just £5 million in February, made crucial saves against Liverpool and leads the race for the Golden Glove with nine clean sheets.
Sels would undoubtedly give the defense credit for him. Not least Murillo, who signed a £15m contract in 2023, and centre-back Nikola Milenkovic, who cost just £12m last summer.
Right-back Ola Aina was released, leaving left-back Neco Williams – a £17million signing in that first summer of madness – becoming the most expensive member of Tuesday's back four.
Chelsea have spent more than £250m on defenders alone under current owners, but have kept just two clean sheets since the start of December.
So Forest have transformed from a championship club to a top-four contender.
And for far less than Chelsea's owners spent to transform the Blues from third-placed in May 2022, a year after winning the Champions League, into a side facing a fight to qualify for the European showpiece of next season.
In Spinal Tap, Tufnel patiently explains why his amp settings go to 11.
After taking their transfer policy one step further, will Forest and Chelsea make their last laugh at their critics in May?
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