Sitting over coffee, Slaven Bilic forwards his theory. “This season is kind of logical,” the manager of West Ham United says of an incredible, topsy-turvy campaign in the Premier League. “I will try to explain.” And explain he does.

The essence of Bilic’s argument is that every club in the league now has the financial capacity to compete and buy what he calls “good enough players”.

“And those clubs that already have [good players], the gap was like this,” Bilic says, spreading his hands wide apart. “Because in Chelsea you had Costa, Fabregas, that one, that one, Hazard. But Crystal Palace didn’t have Cabaye. Now with this [television] money … And next year is going to be even more the possibility that these clubs can buy these players to close the gap. And these clubs [the traditional big ones] can’t buy more of these. You can’t buy Messis, there are not plenty of them. They already have 15 good ones; they can’t buy 30. There is no space.