5 reasons Manchester City will catch Chelsea

January transfer window

City’s billionaire owner has slightly deeper pockets than Chelsea’s (not to mention a more sustainable approach to circumventing Financial Fair Play regulations), but spending power is only half the reason Pep’s side are better geared for a winter recruitment drive.

While Guardiola was able to convince the likes of Ilkay Gundogan and Claudio Bravo to leave Dortmund and Barcelona for a place in his revamped City side in the summer, his opposite number spectacularly failed to land any major transfer target – largely, one suspects, due to their failure to qualify for the Champions League.

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Chelsea settled on David Luiz and Marcos Alonso (both of whom, to be fair, have been almost faultless) after Conte’s preferred options gave them the run-around, and while the Italian has helped to restore some much-needed credibility to Stamford Bridge after a fine first half of the season, he simply doesn’t have the same pulling power as Pep.

Everyone (greedy football agents included) knows that January is the worst time to do business, but with Gundogan hit by a long-term injury, captain Kompany unable to find fitness and Stones struggling for form (“struggling for form” here is a by-word for gifting his opponents goals every week), the club could be tempted to look for external solutions.

Centre-back Vigil Van Dijk is already being heavily linked with a move to the Etihad, for example, and while Southampton are notoriously tough negotiators, the talented Dutchman exactly the kind of player who could make the difference to Pep’s patchy defence.