In another season, Arsenal’s thrilling toe-to-toe draw with Chelsea would have been just what Pep Guardiola ordered.

Two title rivals belting 10 bells out of each other in a London derby has always been a welcome sight in Manchester, whether it was Sir Alex Ferguson’s United leading the Premier League table or, more often in recent times, Man City’s boss.

This time, though, Pep had the luxury of not worrying whether there was any advantage in seeing his main competitors batter and wear each other out like this.

With his team 15 points clear at the top, it doesn’t really matter any more.

Perhaps he even enjoyed watching the gloriously frantic events at the Emirates on Wednesday night as a perfect example of what makes the Premier League such compelling viewing worldwide.

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His tastes in football are usually more refined. And he’s managed to make his team rise above all that wild, unpredictable and combative English fare for most of this season.

If nothing else, though, the game could have confirmed for him that while others still go in for this sort of thing, he is re-defining football here. He is proving emphatically that it can be done his way.

If the grape-vine is correct, he will now set about re-defining it in another way by turning the winter transfer window into an arms race as intense as the one last summer, when he spent £123 million to put City in their current dominant position.

Guardiola, it is said, has four transfer targets this month. Just the four, with one of them being Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez, whom Pep now wants to sign six months earlier than planned because he has lost his Brazilian forward, Gabriel Jesus, to injury.

He also wants defenders, with Barcelona’s £50-million rated Samuel Umtiti among those on the radar along with Inigo Martinez of Real Sociedad and West Brom's Johnny Evans.

It would be foolish of any of City’s rivals to buy big in the traditionally more risky January market simply in order to maintain a title challenge this season. That bus has already departed and City will not falter.

But if they buy big again now, City will be laying down a marker for the future, too, as well as improving their chances of winning two, three or perhaps four trophies time around.

They will be making it plain that they are ready to buy, buy and buy again - this winter, next summer, next winter and so on - in order to maintain what increasingly looks like it will be a long-term domination of the English game.

It's glib to dismiss Guardiola’s success as being based on finance alone. And his job is to win - so why wouldn’t he spend what’s available to him?

But it remains a fact that he has been able to imprint his style on the Premier League so profoundly this season because he can target precisely any player he wants to fit his system. And pay whatever it takes to get them.

Long-term or short-term, Guardiola is going to force Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham as well as Manchester United and Liverpool to contemplate spending with as much regularity and on almost the same scale just to keep up with City.

At Anfield, Jurgen Klopp has already signalled that this will be the new reality by paying £75million to land defender Virgil Van Dijk from Southampton.

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And at Chelsea and Manchester United, the re-opening of the window has been instantly greeted with complaints from Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho that they are not being backed strongly enough in the transfer market.

“I’ve always ended up at clubs running an austerity programme,” said Conte in an interview with Italian television which seemed to skip the fact that according to the Soccerbase website, the club’s spending last summer reached £186m against £69m brought in from summer sales.

In pictures | Chelsea transfer signings 2017-18 6 show all In pictures | Chelsea transfer signings 2017-18 1/6 Alvaro Morata (Real Madrid, undisclosed) PA 2/6 Danny Drinkwater (Leicester, undisclosed) Chelsea FC via Getty Images 3/6 Davide Zappacosta (Torino, undisclosed) Chelsea FC via Getty Images 4/6 Tiemoue Bakayoko (Monaco, £34m) AFP/Getty Images 5/6 Antonio Rudiger (Roma, £29m) Getty Images 6/6 Willy Caballero (Manchester City, free) REUTERS 1/6 Alvaro Morata (Real Madrid, undisclosed) PA 2/6 Danny Drinkwater (Leicester, undisclosed) Chelsea FC via Getty Images 3/6 Davide Zappacosta (Torino, undisclosed) Chelsea FC via Getty Images 4/6 Tiemoue Bakayoko (Monaco, £34m) AFP/Getty Images 5/6 Antonio Rudiger (Roma, £29m) Getty Images 6/6 Willy Caballero (Manchester City, free) REUTERS

Conte has hopes this month of capturing Juventus left-back Alex Sandro and Bayern Munich midfielder Arturo Vidal. And in his eyes, they would be signings made just to keep pace with the other big guns.

Mourinho, meanwhile, is said to be furious that United’s board won’t sanction a £40m move for Tottenham full-back Danny Rose - which is a graphic indication of the new pecking order when you consider that City happily paid £50m for a Spurs full-back, Kyle Walker, last summer.

In such a football world, it’s a reasonable guess that neither Arsenal nor Spurs will wish to become embroiled in a ceaseless battle to match Guardiola - or Chelsea, United and Liverpool - in an endlessly-inflating transfer market.

The fact they are unlikely to buy in this window indicates that. And it doesn’t make them wrong.

But, in all sober and financial reality, it does indicate an acceptance that they will not be winning the title for several years to come.

Conte’s comment isn’t as memory-selective as it first seems. Instead, he is just reflecting the new rules of the game at the top.

The pattern of this season has already confirmed that, yes, Chelsea do need to spend more to catch City.

Guardiola’s success there isn’t based on spending alone. But he has limitless backing to ensure that his way of playing the game beats all others.

It may mean that in the coming years, there will be a Big Four rather than a Big Six - and Chelsea will be London’s only member.