The Precarious Dichotomy Between Spending & Success

It is no secret that the Premier League is inundated with riches. A league in which billionaire owners, superstar players, and exorbitant transfer fees are now very much the norm. Yet despite the widespread expenditures by most English clubs, Manchester City are commonly accused of “ruining football,” with their success diminished by those who say it was “bought”. In my latest article, I’ll attempt to explain just how and why the criticism is hypocritical by a broader overview of how the Premier League and the teams involved have developed (and regressed) over the past decade or so. 

Where better to start than with our noisy neighbors? Since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure in 2013, the respective trajectories of the Manchester clubs couldn’t be more different. United, with their 1.2 billion net spend, fielded the most expensive squad in the history of football in 2023, a season which saw them finish trophyless once again, 14 points behind City. Despite United’s superior spending, history, prestige, and self-appointed “big club” status, it was the blue side Manchester that triumphed in dominant fashion over the red side in the first ever Manchester Derby FA Cup final last season. 

What of Chelsea, whose spending has gone beyond the 1B mark in just three windows under the Boehly era? The London-based outfit also spent a king’s ransom on players during the Abramovich era and success followed. However, their current predicament sees the exorbitantly expensive (and mediocre) squad languishing in 11th place, recently beaten by Liverpool in the league cup final. So was it the money? Or something else? 

And Arsenal? With their 668m net spend over the past 5 years have absolutely bridged the gap to the top teams, finishing in second last season, a bonafide contender this season after a relative period of mediocrity. Yet despite their spending, they have yet to reach the summit. Almost like spending doesn’t equate to success. 

Honestly speaking, I have no issue with any club spending money. Football, like life, is cyclical. And in the beginning of a new cycle, most teams spend massively to accelerate their growth and potential for success. However, it’s important to distinguish between how the money spent provides increased potential for success as opposed to what fans mistakenly refer to as a “guarantee.” There are no guarantees in football (although Guardiola comes close.. we’ll get to that later). 

The definition of success differs and scales with every club. For example, Everton avoiding relegation this season would be a great success for them. Making a European spot would be great for Aston Villa or Newcastle. Arsenal are starving for a title and all things considered, not winning one would be considered somewhat of failure. City were so far behind the rest when the takeover happened. And we invested, heavily. Not just in players but development, infrastructure, the academy etc. The goal wasn’t to be a flash in the pan like Blackburn. It was to build a sustainable vision for the future. To create a paradigm shift in the English football landscape. City were very much a “start-up” in the sense that our burn rate was high and there was a learning curve to becoming one of the elite. The process to becoming who we are today did not come without mistakes and lessons learned both on and off the pitch. And it wouldn’t have happened without our fair share of luck either. Winning the FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League title in 2012 happened relatively early in the takeover era, acting as a catalyst for rapid growth and growing ambition. 

It seems like many older football fans still see City as a small club, which is essentially where the bulk of fake narratives and misunderstandings stem from. Life moves fast and things change but some are still stuck in the early 2000s. Who City is today, their hopes and dreams, are not the same hopes and dreams of yesterday. At the end of the day, winning fixes and changes almost everything in football. And every single successful club is a living, breathing example of that. 

Liverpool are a massive brand and famously generate their own revenue. Much is made of this. But even they needed an injection of cash for their new cycle, which manifested in 142m worth of the Coutinho money. That lead to the purchase of Alisson and Virgil Van Dijk, who essentially helped changed the club’s trajectory from a post-Gerrard struggle to more success and more revenue. The appointment of Klopp was the X-factor they needed to go from a rebuild to genuine winners and contenders.

You won’t find a single City fan that cares to argue about being a “bigger” club that Liverpool (or any club for that matter). I’ve found most City fans are incredibly down to earth and realistic about our club. We are notoriously bad at selling first team players and we didn’t have the “Coutinho money”. But we did sell academy players for nearly 4x the amount (440m.. 3 Coutinhos!!) and won over 2x the trophies they did in the same time period thanks to prudent investment and development. Additionally, City Football Group built a global network of clubs with City at the heart of it all, saw the success of Barcelona and brought in brilliant football minds to fix our scouting and recruitment issues. This was critical in letting business people handle the business while footballing people handled the football. Too many businessmen try to run football clubs for profit without any insight or knowledge into the culture and identity of the club itself (Boehly, Glazers, etc). Most importantly, we landed our X-factor in Pep Guardiola, who has played the biggest part in our emergence and solidification as not only of the biggest clubs but also one of the biggest footballing brands in the world. Remember, winning cures all and Manchester City have won more than anyone else in English football for the past decade. 

You win, you earn. And when you earn, you can spend. It’s that simple.

For the most ambitious clubs, winning, not getting close, is the ultimate goal. And the next step is to do it consistently. Money gets you close but it alone won’t get you over the line. An elite manager like Pep, Sir Alex, Mourinho, Klopp are the ones that close that gap and change the potential into as close of a guarantee as possible. For the rest, it’s about investing, trying, and going again until they win. Until they win, managers like Arteta, Ten Hag, and Poch, with all the financial resources in the world and no titles to show for it will be on the outside looking in. 

At the moment, this is what sets City (and Liverpool) apart from the rest. Different business models, different paths to get here, but at the end of the day, we’ve won.

Did we spend? Yes. Of course, like everybody has. But while spending gave us the tools to succeed, it clearly isn’t the sole source of our success, like it hasn’t been the driving catalyst for others. Perhaps our cycle will end one day. But until then, we’ll keep winning and everyone can continue acting like it was just the money when in reality, it was always so much more that that. 

Written by: SHEIKH