Antonio Conte has today made a dig at Manchester United for our spending in the summer, lumping us in with Manchester City, and claiming that Chelsea are somehow similar to Spurs, Arsenal or Liverpool in the transfer market.

It’s important to understand it’s not always who spends more wins. Otherwise, in this league, this season the name of the team wasn’t Chelsea or Tottenham or Arsenal or Liverpool. You understand? This season isn’t the only season both Manchester clubs have spent a lot of money. Look at the past. [We want] to build, also, slowly slowly to become a real power.

Over the past 10 years, Manchester United have been the biggest spenders in the league during two summers. The most recent was the summer of the 2014 and the time before that was the summer of 2007.

In that same period of time, Chelsea have been the biggest spenders three times, in 2013-14, 2012-13 and 2011-12.

City have been the biggest spenders on six occasions, including the past two seasons on the trot.

In Conte’s first summer at Chelsea, he spent £120 million on players. They’re hardly paupers. Arsenal spent £90m, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool spent £68m. City spent £169m and United spent £149m, meaning Chelsea are far closer to us than they are Spurs and Liverpool, and closer to us than Arsenal.

It’s also worth noting that Conte hasn’t given a single minute of Premier League football to teenagers this season and products of their youth academy have barely had a look in. How can he argue they’re not buying their success when they’ve spent a fortune and don’t play any of the players who cost them nothing? Chelsea have won the FA Youth Cup in five of the last six seasons yet Conte doesn’t fancy any of their academy players.

Conte claims that Chelsea are building their team slowly, yet have spent just £29m less than United did this summer, and over £50m more than Spurs and Liverpool, teams who he likens Chelsea to.

Chelsea have played just 40 games this season, compared to the 46 of Arsenal, 49 of City and 55 of United. It will be interesting to see how he gets on next season, particularly if he thinks his club aren’t the sort to buy success.