The past weekend provided the clearest indicator yet of who is going to be involved in the Premier League title race this season.
In Saturday's early kick-off, Chelsea stuck seven goals past perennial pushovers Norwich City. Later in the day, Manchester City were at their brilliant best as they saw off surprise highflyers Brighton 4-1.
Then yesterday, Liverpool put a hopeless Manchester United to the sword at Old Trafford with a 5-0 thumping.
Perhaps it wasn't surprising that the league's three best teams scored a shed load of goals, but one finer detail did raise an eyebrow.
All three did so without playing an orthodox striker.
It's funny how the deafening cries for City to buy a striker in January are reduced to mere whispers when they play well, isn't it? Since the Blues failed in their summer attempts to sign Harry Kane, Pep Guardiola has been inundated with questions about his lack of a natural number nine.
After Saturday's stunning win, he'd had enough.
"I'm going to tell you something, one day we are going to lose a game and you're going to ask me if I miss a striker, I bet you whatever you want", the City boss said on Sky Sports. "I don't buy this question."
Maybe City's tendency to be wasteful in front of goal means that the striker narrative will linger for the rest of the season, although as the emphatic wins against Club Brugge and Brighton showed, they clearly don't need a number nine.
The fact that both Liverpool and Chelsea won so convincingly this weekend without one put another nail in the traditional centre-forward's coffin.
With Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner both sidelined through injury for the visit of Norwich, Thomas Tuchel reverted to the tactic that won his side the Champions League last season - deploying Kai Havertz as a false nine. Well, sort of.
Tuchel was at pains to point out that he considers Havertz as a striker when he plays there, as if being a false nine is some terrible disease, but the Germany international certainly dropped deeper than a traditional centre forward.
He might not have scored, but the absence of a target man didn't stop the Londoners from cruising to a 7-0 win.
Back in Manchester, Liverpool punished United for their defensive indiscipline by racing into a 4-0 lead before half-time. Like City, Klopp's side have played without a striker pretty much all season, instead preferring to use either Roberto Firmino (as was the case on Sunday) or Diogo Jota as a mobile central attacker.
At times at Old Trafford, Firmino dropped incredibly deep, his ability to drag United's defence about creating plenty of space for Salah and Jota to exploit. Like Havertz for Chelsea, the Brazilian didn't score or assist, but his presence in the front line no doubt enabled Liverpool to storm to victory.
There has never been a notion this season that Liverpool need to play with an out-and-out striker and rightly so, having scored 27 goals in nine Premier League games they clearly aren't missing one.
But the same should apply to City. As the third-highest scorers in the league, on average the Blues have bagged over two goals per game.
Ultimately, Guardiola wanted to sign a striker over the summer. After the Kane deal fell through and Cristiano Ronaldo went to United, he decided to persist with the false-nine system that served City so well last season, rather than buy a second-rate forward to plug a gap.
Before the start of this campaign, many scoffed at City's supposed arrogance for believing they could win the title again without a striker. Yet at the weekend, their rivals fell into line and reaped the very real benefits of playing a false nine.
Do you think that City's decision to play with a false nine has been vindicated? Follow City Is Ours writer Alex Brotherton on Twitter to join the conversation and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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