When Liverpool took on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last weekend, they did so while deprived of some key players and their manager.
Number one in more ways than one was Alisson Becker, arguably the best goalkeeper in the world, who was once the most expensive player in that position too.
While he was the costliest absentee, eight further players were unavailable for one reason or another, with the likes of Roberto Firmino and Thiago Alcantara not exactly cheap by the Reds’ general transfer standards either.
It was a similar story for Chelsea, albeith Thomas Tuchel was not forced to omit their £97.5m forward Romelu Lukaku.
READ MORE: Pep Lijnders tests positive for COVID after new Liverpool outbreak
READ MORE: Liverpool got instant boost from £75m deal as signing bizarrely announced at half-time
Nonetheless, both teams were able to field sides which cost far above the average for a Premier League XI this season.
The problem comes with how they compare to the one other realistic title contender and hot favourite to finish top, Manchester City.
In order to assess transfer spending fairly, it’s useful to put the figures into context. There was a time when Liverpool set the British transfer record by signing Stan Collymore for £8.5m, but such an outlay would not set pulses racing these days.
These discrepancies led Paul Tomkins and Graeme Riley to create their Transfer Price Index (TPI) system, which applies inflation to every signing made in the Premier League to determine what it would have cost had it been made this season.
It’s important at this point to note that inflation moves far faster in the football transfer market than it does in the real world.
Where the value of a pound has risen approximately 80 percent between the dawn of the Premier League and today, in transfer terms the growth has been more like 3,000 percent.
With players bought in the last few years, the difference between their actual fee and their TPI value won’t have changed too much.
But for someone like Jordan Henderson, who moved to Liverpool over 10 years ago, it has a more significant impact. His signing would have cost the Reds a cool £74.7m had it been made today.
The Reds’ skipper was part of their line up for the match at Stamford Bridge, and along with his 10 teammates the Liverpool starting XI cost a combined £409.3m when inflation is taken into account.
It was their second cheapest line up of the season though, with the team which took on Tottenham Hotspur – which featured four players who either came through the youth ranks or joined the club on free transfers – clocking in at £369.3m.
However, the Reds team on Sunday still cost more to assemble in TPI terms than Chelsea’s side, which set them back £361.7m.
Neither club is among the league’s paupers by any means. Both XIs which started at Stamford Bridge were in the top 68 most expensive among the 382 which have featured in the Premier League so far this season.
When you consider that Manchester City’s starting line up for their win over Arsenal cost an inflation-adjusted £796.5m though, more than Chelsea and Liverpool’s sides combined, the size of the task facing them becomes clear.
Where City’s cheapest starter (Ederson) set them back £39.3m, Tuchel only had four who cost more than that while the Reds had six.
These examples are only for one line up each of course, but the general trend exists across the season. The average City side has cost £676.3m, when those figures have been £473.2m and £340.5m for Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.
Like any system or model, the Transfer Price Index is not perfect. It takes no account of free transfers, and it’s clear that salary spending is a hugely important contributing factor in football success too.
Money alone isn’t everything either. Manchester United’s starting XI cost 3.7 times as much as Wolves’ did at Old Trafford on Monday evening, yet the visitors earned a deserved victory (and with a side which cost less than Kevin De Bruyne).
In terms of the title chase though, Liverpool and Chelsea are trying to reel in the defending champions with much more cheaply assembled teams.
The challenge has rarely looked as difficult as it does at present.
