WHAT HAPPENS in London today might determine the destiny of England's, and perhaps even Europe's, championship titles this season. Chelsea versus Tottenham is an annual tribal rite that sometimes produces startling score lines, like the 4-4 at White Hart Lane back in March that, in retrospect, denied Chelsea the two points by which they lost the Premier League to Manchester United.

This lunchtime dual, however, is at Stamford Bridge. It is only 11 miles away, but Spurs have never won there in the Premiership, and no domestic opponent has beaten Chelsea there in 84 matches encompassing the whole of the Roman Abramovich era.

Intriguingly, the fans are warned of extra police vigilance today against the anti-Semitic chanting that is as deep rooted to this fixture as bigotry is to an Old Firm derby. Once it was the Chelsea way of taunting Tottenham, now, with both clubs run by Jewish businessmen, the host club want none of it.

Yes, the times are a-changing down in London.

When Abramovich first flew over the English capital, searching for a club to buy, he was allegedly cold-shouldered by Spurs before he was welcomed at Chelsea. Some £500 million pounds of investment later, Abramovich is still spending on Chelski, but some wonder what Tottenham's own sugar daddy billionaire makes of it.

He, Joseph Lewis, is an Englishman living in the Bahamas. And whereas the Russian oligarch is a familiar presence at the Bridge, nobody knows what Joe Lewis, the Londoner, sees in his Spurs. The club is run by Daniel Levy, a protégé and now a business partner in one of Lewis's many acquisitions.

It is bizarre that we talk of money, money, money in the derby encounter. But how can we avoid the subject? How can we escape the fact that Spurs was once great, but is currently going through a high risk spending summer trying to buy a place close to the Big Four who monopolise the English Premier League?

Lewis is a rich man, worth perhaps one seventh of Abramovich's £12 billion. But Tottenham is being torn apart and reassembled to try to give its Spanish coach Juande Ramos the chance to challenge near the top.

This summer, the Spurs have dispensed with nine players, notably Robbie Keane to Liverpool. They have acquired eight, including Croatia's Luca Modric, Mexico's Giovani Dos Santos, and even an Englishman, David Bentley. But the window doesn't close until midnight on Monday, and despite so many strangers trying to blend, Spurs' trading isn't done.

Chelsea fans hope theirs is not either.

Tottenham yesterday confirmed they had agreed a deal to sign Spartak Moscow's striker Roman Pavlyuchenko who made such a fine, athletic impression for Russia at Euro 2008. His £16m fee, and much of the money Zenit St Petersburg is holding out for on Andrei Arshavin, would need to be financed.

We all think we know from where. For most of this year, Alex Ferguson has coveted Spurs' Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov. In the past week Sir Alex has off-loaded three strikers. Chris Eagles has flown, Dong Fangzhou has been shown the exit, and Louis Saha will join Everton if he manages the hardest thing in his career, to pass a medical.

All this is to make way for the purchase and the wages of Berbatov. It is not difficult to understand why. Cristiano Ronaldo can surely not score 42 goals in one season again, extraordinary though he is. Saha when he is on song gave United a physical presence, height as well as movement, that is not there with Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney.

They need a big man to play off, and Berbatov not only stands 6ft 2in tall, he glides with a subtlety not given to many big men, he is intuitively aware of the runs of colleagues, he can be brave, and he appears to be strong where Saha is suspect. He is fit for action most games of the season.

Just ask Chelsea about Berbatov. He mesmerised them at Stamford Bridge in an FA Cup tie, he has scored on his last two appearances against the Blues, he finds the space, finds hesitation between Ricardo Carvalho and the supposedly rock solid John Terry.

Tottenham have known that Manchester United want Berbatov the way that the football world knew for months that Spurs intended to sack Martin Jol and entice Ramos to succeed him.

So it smacks of hypocrisy for Levy to complain that Ferguson's courting of Berbatov constitutes an illegal approach for his player. It is the hard ball game that major clubs pursue without blinking an eye.

Fergie did it with Saha from Fulham, and now does it with Berbatov. Tottenham did it knowing full well that Ramos was contracted to Sevilla. Chelsea do it to just about everybody whenever their owner Abramovich changes coaches, and the new man wants to change the team.

In the current transfer window, so far, Chelsea has been more a seller than a spender.

Luiz Felipe Scolari has arrived, along with two of the Portuguese players he managed before, and Deco has started with two exquisite goals, Jose Bosingwa has settled into the defence to the manner born.

But the clock is ticking, and Scolari hasn't yet got the one he most wants. Robinho was more than willing to join Chelsea, but Real Madrid aborted negotiations, partly because they say Chelsea offer too little, mostly because Manchester United refused to sell Ronaldo to Madrid.

The clubs toy with one another. They try to tweak more millions out of brinkmanship, but also to tweak the noses of rivals. The longer the deals draw out, the less time the new owner has to embed a star into their system.

I believe the key to the season is Berbatov. United have looked at Klaas-Jan Huntelaar as a replacement, but he has nothing of the craft, the subtlety, the proven class of Berbatov. Without the Bulgarian, Manchester could well lose the crown back to Chelsea.