You cannot fault Antonio Conte’s logic. He is expected to win the title for Chelsea again next season.
Mauricio Pochettino, by contrast, merely wants to win it for Tottenham. But if he doesn’t, then hey, it was a tough call, anyway, with his team playing the whole season at Wembley rather than White Hart Lane.
Who, with any modicum of common sense could argue with that? It stands to reason, doesn’t it? The pub bore could tell you the same, let alone the Chelsea manager.
At Stamford Bridge, Conte has a stronger, deeper squad and vastly more wealth allowing him to sign players like his £58million new arrival from Real Madrid, Alvaro Morata.
There is also a deeply entrenched culture of success which has brought the club every trophy in the game, most of them more than once, during the past 14 years.
It doesn’t even really need pointing out that this means there are greater expectations in west London than at Tottenham. Roman Abramovich’s copious record of sackings makes it crystal clear, too.
It was wrong this week, however, for Conte’s comments in Singapore about the relative standing of the two clubs to be interpreted so widely as a statement of disdain for Spurs’ levels of ambition.
Instead, it was only an assessment of the current state of play - and even then Conte made it seem as if it is Spurs of whom he is most wary of all next season.
He did that by making it plain that he’d love to spend £100m on Harry Kane. And by then pointing out that Pocchetino’s side won no fewer than 11 of their final 12 games last season. It was a proper mark of respect.
Tottenham are ambitious, all right. They’ve got the grandest plan of all of the big London clubs with their fabulous new stadium set to rocket them into a new financial sphere from 2018. And it's almost in place.
They’ve displayed even more vision than their rivals by incorporating the NFL into their new home to increase the strength of their international power base. They’ve tied a lot of the game’s best young players like Kane and Delle Alli to extended contracts.
And they have a manager in Pochettino who, at 45, seems happy to stay put and prove he can win things by force of his own managerial insight, purpose and planning rather than by chequebook alone.
They haven’t signed anyone this summer, and it is causing consternation among those in this modern era who seem to think the main purpose of football is to facilitate the frenzy of the transfer market.
In Pictures | Tottenham vs PSG | 23/07/2017
By contrast, I see it as a sign of strength of will from Pochettino and Daniel Levy.
They’ve changed the perception of Spurs as flaky and directionless. But after waiting 56 years since they last won the title, it would be plain daft to fail to understand that things might just take a little while longer to fall completely into place.
Especially when the elite clubs around them like Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United have such vastly greater spending power.
There’s the basic reality of the battle for the Premier League title. Fans get involved in spurious arguments about the relative “bigness” and ambition of their clubs. Really, its just about the size of their chequebooks.
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After the signing of Morata, Chelsea look strong enough to win the title again. But there are no certainties this time around as the transfer market arms race rumbles on.
In fact, I make Conte right to be more wary than Spurs of anyone else.
They are a driven, settled, inspired young team set to step up to the next level. And that makes them more of a threat to Chelsea than Arsenal, who still don’t look powerful enough despite the £52m signing of Alexandre Lacazette.
In Pictures | Arsenal sign Alexandre Lacazette | 05/07/2017
Manchester United will trouble Chelsea, too, because Jose Mourinho usually does his best work in his second season in command - and because he will know exactly how to get the best out of the Paul Pogba-Romelu Lukaku axis.
Man City, who have spent most of all on players like £50m full-back Kyle Walker, may actually struggle to make a real impact, however.
Their spending spree may mean there has been too much upheaval for the team to settle. And if such a scenario is exacerbated by Pep Guardiola’s determination to take on the English game playing in his own, uniquely detailed way, it could all fail to gel.
At this stage, it looks to me that Spurs and United will be the most serious challengers to Chelsea - and that heavy expectation that means Conte must win the title again.
And again. And again.