2. The Money Spent In The Last 4/5 years Has Been Outrageous
Everyone knows about Manchester City's spending. People who don't follow football know about Manchester City's spending and we who follow football know it all to well. Since Sheikh Mansour completed his takeover of Manchester City in September 2008, the net spend of the club has been £430.77 million compared to the -£31.3 million net spend of Arsenal, who are still well capable of qualifying in the top four of the Premier League. This is a crazy amount of money, especially when you consider that the team that they beat on goal difference for the title, namely Manchester United, have a net spend of only £47.25 million over the last 5 years. Ok, Manchester City won the FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League in 2012 and that's an amazing achievement but we're judging the club on its Champions League progress and, I'm sorry, but group stage also-rans is just not good enough. The amount of money Manchester City have spent over the last 5 years is simply another reason they have no excuses in the Champions League especially when, also in City's group this year is a team from yesteryear, Ajax. Rather than spend big and win trophies that way, Ajax have decided to follow a path of slow, consistent development which won't blow a hole in anyone's pockets. Their pursuit of perfecting their youth academy is working and shows Manchester City how there is a different, more economical way to bring both domestic and European success - the reason I am comparing City to Ajax is because the Dutch outfit have just beaten City 3-1 as I'm writing this piece and in my view if a team with £430.77 million net spend in the last 5 years is not beating a team who's team is built on youth then what is the point?