Bill Shankly once recalled that in his time at Anfield the two best teams on Merseyside were Liverpool and Liverpool reserves. As a sharp put-down of neighbours Everton, it was amusing, but it was also untrue.

Last weekend at Middlesbrough, most of Chelsea’s selected team were second choice in their positions. It was, perhaps, Chelsea’s most comfortable Premier League win since Roman Abramovich’s money allowed them to buy a first team too costly for others to consider and understudies that others would die for.

Football historians may recall Chelsea’s Riverside saunter as the time when the upstairs/downstairs nature of the Premier League reached the point of absurdity. With eight of their best players not fit to start, Chelsea should have been vulnerable to a young team that have a good record on their own ground against the top teams. Middlesbrough were missing four of their best players, their team didn’t perform on the day, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, yet there was still a vague sense of bewilderment that Boro had been crushed by a side missing eight first-teamers.

In the rush to explain how a Chelsea side with so many fringe players should have won a potentially difficult away match 5-0, the performance was accorded a status that didn’t tally with reality.

John Terry claimed it was the best by a Chelsea side in his time, but the skipper must have been caught up in the moment when he said that. Far more telling was the quizzical, are-you-kidding-me look on Luiz Felipe Scolari’s face when it was suggested that it was a special Chelsea performance. “In some games you score more goals,” he said with a polite disdain for the opinion that came with the question. Boro’s manager, Gareth Southgate, also saw it for what it was. “They didn’t have to be at their best,” he said.

What has become clear and should concern the Premier League is that the top four clubs, especially Chelsea and Manchester United, have the financial and organisational wherewithal to hold on to top-class players who would rather be an understudy there than a key member of the first team elsewhere. With the top clubs competing seriously in at least three competitions, there will, of course, be plenty of opportunities for squad players to start matches.

The change could not have taken place without a shift in players’ attitudes. In the not-too-distant past, it would have been inconceivable that the two best England players for one position would be at the same club, as Ashley Cole and Wayne Bridge are. You might wonder that a player as dedicated and talented as Bridge would stay at a club where he is second choice in his position.

From Bridge’s point of view, it is easily rationalised. He is understudy to a player who picks up a lot of injuries, he is in a football environment that challenges him and will improve him, he is very well paid, and by not being a regular first-team player, there is the chance of a season or two longer at the end of his career.

So the gap between the elite and their rivals widens. If you select a first and a second XI from Chelsea’s 27-man squad, as we have done, and ask yourself how many players from second-and third-tier Premier League clubs would get into Scolari’s second team, the answer is not encouraging. Part of the reason Middlesbrough lost so heavily was that Chelsea’s understrength side had too much talent and technical ability.

As the big four distance themselves from the pack, the consequence is predictability. It is a great weakness of the Premier League that in a race not yet a quarter of the way through, everyone knows who will fill the top four places. Only the order in which they finish remains to be determined.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Scolari and their excellent squads aren’t to blame, but neither are the owners and managers of the teams that struggle to compete. Manchester United have a unique appeal and there are few benefactors with Abramovich’s financial means.

It would be encouraging to feel that those who run the Premier League were as concerned as they should be.