If we are going to have any joy discussing what is going on at Manchester City, I need you to think about two things before we can begin. First, Alan Hansen and second, road speed cameras.

As the season got under way, I was watching Match of the Day and Hansen was asked whether any teams other than Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool could make it into the top four this time. “No chance,” he replied. And he repeated this for emphasis — no chance.

Now even as things stood then, this was not true. The Fink Tank’s Dr Henry Stott and Dr Mark Latham calculate that Tottenham Hotspur had a 16 per cent chance of a top-four finish, Everton a 12 per cent chance, Aston Villa 9 per cent, Blackburn Rovers 4 per cent, Portsmouth 2 per cent and Middlesbrough 1 per cent.

And these figures did not take account of a “black swan” — an event of low probability but high impact. Two weeks after Hansen’s comments came the black swan of the Manchester City takeover. The lesson is that “no chance” is a careless thing to say about the outcome of a football competition.

Now, speed cameras. Speed cameras are placed by roads where there has been a surprisingly high number of accidents. There is, however, a problem with this approach and it is called reversion to the mean. Numbers bounce about. A variable that is very high one year will tend to be less high the next. Put crudely, there is luck involved in how many accidents occur in a particular place and over time, luck evens out. This year’s accident blackspot may not be next year’s.

Something similar happens in football. Teams regress to the mean — this year’s above-average performers tend to do less well next year. Using ten seasons of data, the Fink Tank team has mapped the points scored in one season by comparison to the previous year. This exercise showed clearly how, say, a poor West Ham United season is often followed by a relatively good one and a good Newcastle United season by quite a poor one. Fans probably expect that if their team perform wonderfully one season, this is a good base for the next. Instead, on average, it is an indicator that the next season will disappoint.

To assess what could happen at Manchester City, the Fink Tank has brought these two things together — we have combined the black swan of City’s new money with the path we would expect their points total to take, given what we know about reversion to the mean.

We are guided by two things: the higher a team’s turnover, the better they should be expected to do, and over time points will bounce around but return to the average. Knowing these things, and the data about City’s points in the past and the turnover of all Barclays Premier League clubs, allows us to try to predict the course of City’s points.

The graphic shows how we would expect City to progress if they immediately became a club with the same turnover as Chelsea. It is interesting to note that the improvement is slower and more muted than perhaps the prospective new owners expect. It would, with Chelsea’s money, take them time to be right up there with the big boys. It is only with double Chelsea’s turnover that City would really put on a spurt. With double the Chelsea turnover, City would, quite quickly, be a force to be reckoned with.

And that, my friends, is a lot of money.