Same old story?

IN many ways, as a curtain raiser, the Community Shield was the least enthralling appetiser for the new season we have had for years.

It was rather a case of the same old same old, as the two super powers of the English game slugged it out much as they have over the past half dozen years. Boxing and coxing, to-ing and fro-ing, the power ebbing and swaying before Manchester United ultimately triumphed: the story of the 2002-3 season shoe-horned into one very hot, bad-tempered 100 minutes of action.

Give or take the odd tinkering at the periphery, neither team had anything interesting or new to show off. The best they could manage between them was Arsenal's new change kit. And that was retro-modelled on a style worn in the seventies.

What everyone wanted to see was the swanky spendthrifts in action. Chelsea are the must-watch attraction in England, at least until the end of September. Those with an affection for the King's Road boys are jittery with anticipation to see how the millions donated by their new Russian owner translate on to the field of play. If money can't buy you love, might it at least buy them a title? Or a European venture? Or if nothing else at least a trip to Cardiff for the Carling Cup final.

Meanwhile the rest of the footballing world are equally frayed with excitement at the delicious possibility of seeing all that cash fall flat on its arrogant, assumptive, arriviste nose. 75million quid and you've won blank all: you can almost hear the chant now.

Roman Abramovich's intervention at Chelsea was certainly the story of the summer. His injection of capital has papered over the cracks of a game hurtling its undistinguished way towards bankruptcy. In a close season in which the only talking point threatened to be how little Leeds would bank from selling Harry Kewell (David Beckham's move cannot be described as a talking point, filed as it is under causes for a national state of emergency) his cash cheered everyone up. Particularly the players' agents, who thought their days of seeing a pay cheque were long over. Claudio Ranieri, the intelligent, resourceful blues manager, initially set out to spend his rouble fest with characteristic care and attention to the long term. Players like Glen Johnson, Wayne Bridge and even Damien Duff all looked like thoughtful ones for the future.

But then it appeared someone reminded him that a man like Abramovich didn't accumulate the sums he has by exhibiting much in the way of patience. Ranieri had better win something pronto, or start looking for employment elsewhere. So in came Joe Cole and the enigma of Old Trafford Juan Veron.

The irony is, his sudden late flourish of the cheque book has immediately upset any balanced approach, suggesting Ranieri is unlikely to be lifting the Premiership trophy next May. Experience suggests that clubs that win the title have 20 goals a season men up front and a midfield that can win enough of the ball to provide them with the chances. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Emmanuel Petit fit into neither category.

Intriguingly the Blues' first outing is against the team routinely mentioned in pre-season dispatches, more out of habit than any genuine sense that this could be their year. True, Liverpool have added Harry Kewell to the ball-winning, goal-scoring duo of Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen. But they are still saddled with Jerzy Dudek in goal. And in the dug out, Gerard Houllier, a man whose idea of a wildly adventurous gamble is eating a fruit yoghurt on its sell-by date.

Liverpool were pipped to the last Champions League place the only current measure of success by Newcastle, a side rapidly growing to resemble the Lags Eleven of the North East. Adding Lee Bowyer a man who once demolished the interior of a McDonald's because the man serving behind the counter was an Asian to a dressing room including Jonathan Woodgate a man convicted of affray involving an Asian student and Craig Bellamy who is facing charges of racially-aggravated assault should make things interesting each time they play Arsenal a side often consisting of nine black players.

Not that being a yob stops anyone playing football, but it hardly suggests that the more sober elements in the Newcastle set-up will be looking forward to teaming up with the tearaways.

Already old sobersides Gary Speed has objected on behalf of the law-abiding element in the dressing room to an ill-worded letter sent out by the chairman telling the players they had better behave or else.

It all means we are looking at a re-telling of the familiar tale. Arsenal slick, clever but ultimately self-destructive failing at the last to overcome the Manchester United hegemony. United may have lost Veron and Beckham, but the way Roy Keane, Paul Scholes and the magnificently combative Eric Djemba-Djemba played in Cardiff at the weekend, frankly it is hard to see how they would have been in the team anyway.