yeah i mean chelsea had a lot of money but they invested in a project of building a side rather than a collection of stars.. Robben, Essien, Glen Johnson, Del Horno, Ferreira, Carvalho, Makalele, Crespo, Drogba were by no means there as yet in terms of star power when they came on board..
This was until of course Roman get greedy and rip up the blueprint to go for Sheva and Ballack.
Man City just moving utterly wild now with it.
Been waiting a long time to be able to say this from the other end of the table, "Man City are ruining football!!" 
Whateva...dais jus talk...Man City eh moving so wild as all that...The list of Chelsea names you call dey was as much as if not more recognizeable at the time than Man City's acquisitions as far as star quality goes.
Robben, Essien, Makalele, Crespo, Ferreira and Drogba were all huge signings- maybe not yet 100% proven (except for Makalele and Crespo), and because many of them were defensive players it may seem less glamorous...but dem fellas weren't no diamonds in the rough being bought for growth and future development- they were big talents brought in for instant success... and as you say, Ballack & Sheva were uber stars...
Man City is paying big big money for very good players but in all fairness none of the most recent acquisitions are "stars" per se. Tevez, Adebayor and Robinho are the biggest "names" in the club...Robinho may be on the out, Tevez already put in his work, and we all know how you feel about Adebayor
looking at the line ups posted by Ryan, there are some very good players in there, but I eh really seeing any galactico type collection of stars that you're talking about. It have normal men in there still.... Yaya Toure is a massive signing but in all fairness, given his role on the team he's not exactly a glamourous buy....
The biggest difference is not in the star quality of the players Chelsea v Man City ...The difference is that Chelsea brought players in under the management of a very capable coach who kept the egos in check and was able to build a solid trophy winning unit- and we could only talk that in hindsight....if another coach who couldn't handle it tried to manage that bunch of egos and failed, you'd be hearing the same talk about Chelsea just bought a collection of stars. Bottom line is that everybody is a pundit but nobody really knows what they're talking about. Right now is a setta guessing games.. Mancini is really the man in charge of who will be able to say "I told you so" at the end of the day...
