Chelsea have been given a gift by Manchester United at the moment. In fact, all of England's top sides have been, as the growing implosion under Ole Gunnar Solskjær is offering the Premier League a great lesson in how not to build a title-winning squad.
Whether the intention of United's ownership is to build one is another question, but the failures in coaching and recruitment all ring big alarm bells that Marina Granovskia and Chelsea must take seriously when debating future transfer business in efforts to compete with Manchester City and Liverpool.
No bigger lesson within the current mess at Old Trafford is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Why United decided to bring back a club legend still appears to be purely motivated by the fear of city rivals Manchester City getting him instead. Rather than looking at where the squad's transfer priority should have been in central midfield, United panicked and added another glamorous name to their collection of attackers.
Now Solskjær is struggling to cope with a forward who does not press, in a tactical setup that cannot fully compensate for that, as seen with the way Leicester, Atalanta and Liverpool have carved them open over the past week.
Ronaldo, for all of his legendary status in world football, was not desperately needed in the squad for United to improve, as pseudo-intellectual as that may sound. United were already well-stocked in the attacking area with Edinson Cavani, Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood, Bruno Fernandes, Jesse Lingard, Paul Pogba and the £73m outlay on Jadon Sancho.
Now the winger they slowly chased for over two years is sat on the bench wondering when his next game will arrive. This is not purely a Solskjær failing, you think back to 2014 when United did a late supermarket sweep for Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao who both struggled and departed 12 months later.
The rush to sign superstars has been too enticing for Director Ed Woodward during his tenure, the glamour of the 'Theatre of Dreams', the brand coming first over building a vaguely coherent team who do not get obliterated by their fiercest rivals in embarrassing fashion. Ronaldo's return was supposed to be the fairytale return, the icon coming home to help a club legend and former teammate achieve greatness.
A week before Halloween, it has turned into a full nightmare and Solskjær is stuck with an expensive player who he cannot drop but appears to be causing more damage to the building process than improving on recent seasons.
Chelsea may be tempted (as I wrote about over the weekend) to chase after Erling Haaland next summer as his £68m release clause comes into effect. But given the £98m outlay on Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan and the £150m spent on Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech the previous year, the club has invested enough for Tuchel to form a title-challenging attack.
If you were to ask supporters where the European Champions could strengthen, central midfield would likely be the answer, even with the team currently sitting top of the league and including Ballon d'Or nominees in Jorginho and N'Golo Kante.
Persistent links to Declan Rice and Aurélien Tchouaméni have provided evidence that this is an area the club has been looking at, added to on deadline day with the loan signing of Saul Niguez from Atletico Madrid. A move in 2022 for either Rice or Tchouaméni would be intelligent given the current quality of both players and what it will likely need moving into the next five years.
That is intelligent planning. Like the uncovered gem of Edouard Mendy, the £50m signing of Ben Chilwell or the chance to jump on the opportunity to acquire Thiago Silva, Chelsea have focused their efforts on strengthening areas of the squad that needed surgery, rather than just falling for a quick dopamine hit.
With Thomas Tuchel in charge, Chelsea has a golden opportunity to use their financial muscle coupled with the German's tactical brilliance to create a long-lasting and complete squad that can challenge well into the future, even after Tuchel has departed.
In some ways Ronaldo's current struggle is good proof an Eden Hazard return is not a great idea and could cause similar harm in the future to a crop of young attackers like Mason Mount, Kai Havertz and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
Star power and glamour will always be a part of the way top teams generally recruit given the level of talent they are chasing, though Manchester United's apparent attempt to take that idea to ludicrous levels has proven extremely costly as they drift further away from a title challenge.
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