Chelsea have obvious next FFP decision to make as points deduction reality clear

And now we wait. For the next 12 months, presumably when things ramp up again in the summer but also predictably later on this season when Everton find out the verdict from their second set of financial breaches, Chelsea will be in a state of limbo.

They aren't the only side -Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool are all pushing the line too — but they are the most obvious candidate to pick on. Committing over £1billion in potential transfer spending over just three windows and 18 months gets you into the conversation alone, let alone dropping from third to 12th and slowly up to 11th in the table.

Chelsea are also a wonderful example of how the whole profitability and sustainability rules (PSRs) experiment is largely misunderstood. File, 'what about Chelsea, how can they afford *insert player X's name here' into the category of,'why haven't Manchester City been punished yet?'.

There are relatively simple answers to these questions that have largely gotten lost in the total controversy of the past 13 months. The Premier League has gone from a silent bystander, watching its clubs bring in effectively any owner from across the world, spend more than any other country on players and wages, and evade any eyesight, let alone slap on the wrist, to an angry machine.

Realising, you suspect, the threat of an independent regulator and government interference with 'our game', the league has taken a fight to itself.Manchester City were charged with 115 breaches of financial regulations before Everton followed, having gone over the PSR threshold.

In the time since, the league has become a warzone. Online, in the courtrooms, on the field, and on paper. It is a mess.

What Nottingham Forest points deduction means for Arsenal and Chelsea