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By Nitram
There’s a big article in football365 today exploring the reasons why Manchester City have suddenly had this massive downturn in form. The reasons range from the FFP charges hanging over them, the loss of Rodri, being out tactic’d, to the loss of the fear factor.
All of which are possibly part of it, but there’s not a mention of what I believe is the main reason: MONEY. Or more accurately their low net spend on players.
Over the past 5 years Man City have, relatively speaking, stopped spending. They are the 11th biggest net spenders in the Premier League behind the likes of West Ham, Crystal Palace and even Nottingham Forest.
Football365 has a full list of Premier League spending and this shows that the top spenders are Chelsea on £795 million, and we can see what it’s done for them, eventually.
Manchester United are second top spenders with £547 million, but as we can see, they still can’t get it right and they currently languish in 13th place, and are the biggest underachievers. But they will get it right, eventually. To do this they will have to keep spending though.
Arsenal are third top spenders, and as we all know, currently sit in 3rd place. Par for the spend.
Liverpool, who are currently sitting top of the pile, are 7th biggest spenders with £253 million and are the biggest overachievers.
Manchester City, who are currently languishing in 6th place following a run of one victory and one draw in the last eight Premier League matches, as I mentioned, have the 11th highest spend at £139 million.
Oddly enough, despite sitting sixth, they are actually over-achieving in relation to their net spend, but of course they are seriously heading in the wrong direction. And guess what? The only way to arrest this slide will be………to SPEND LOADS OF MONEY.
Well, they’ve already got the best manager in the world, and that alone isn’t enough, is it? So, it has to be the fact Pep has not strengthened the squad and kept up with his main rivals. If he sees this crisis out and stays at Manchester City he will have to spend, and spend big, as will anyone else who replaces him.
Wenger maintained a top four finish for 10 years with a ZERO net spend over the period. I always maintained it was a miracle. I also always maintained that a massive part of Pep’s success was the ONE BILLION net spend on the squad in the early years of the State Sponsorship.
There is no denying Pep is a great manager, but I never believed he was the genius many suggested.
I always asked the question. “How would Pep cope if he had the financial restrictions imposed on him that Wenger had?”
It appears the answer is, “not very well.”
