Hmmm not sure about that re: spending. It's quite public that Man City really wanted both Maguire and Sanchez for example, but could not match the money ManU put forward.
Sounds crazy but seems like that was actually the case. Not sure if it were due to FFP (lol) or Man City simply refusing to go any higher, but ManU did win those two financial battles.
We've been throwing money around, just at the wrong players (Di Maria, Falcao, Sanchez, Lukaku, Mkhitaryan etc etc etc). OGS seems to be fixing this, Maguire, AWB and Fernandes have all improved us significantly. James is a work in progress, which we knew when we signed him from the Championship. Hard to have too many qualms about his transfer work so far unless you're going out of your way to be unhappy.
You obviously did not get my point re Maguire. I never mentioned overspending on the 90 million we spent, I just said he was overrated.
English players are very expensive but that does not necessarily mean they are the best. That fee makes Macguire the most expensive defender in the world-- but he is hardly the best. I think he is OK as he can go forward and pass well, but his positioning is not that good and he tends to ball watch. Falcao was on loan and unfortunately was recovering from injury. He was actually a very good striker. Sanchez was a swap deal for Mkhitaryan and although he was poor for us I believe he was a top player and is disappointing it did not work out.
The three players Maguire,AWB and Fernandes have improved us but I am not sure about James and only time will tell..
As for the point about the Utd owners not wanting to open their checkbooks.The 6 Glaziers on the board get paid 2.5 million quid each per year and they don't really care if we are first or fifth.The difference between our owners and Citys is that he does not pull millions of dollars out of the club each year.He has put in 1.3 billion into City with amazing facilities. That is why Pep went there instead of coming to us as we just can't compete with that.