Manchester United have spent £600m on 22 players since Fergie left but are still nowhere near City
The Red Devils have spent £600million on 22 players since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, but are yet to mount a serious title charge
WHEN it comes to chasing the club backed by the Sheikh, Manchester United are running on sand.
The more they spend, the more they change the manager, the more things stay the same.
The more they try to recover the glory years that Sir Alex Ferguson bestowed on this club, the more frustrating it gets.
Since Sir Alex bowed out, United have spent £600million on 22 players and had three different managers.
In that time they have not made any significant inroads into winning the title again.
In terms of top spot they have finished 22, 17, 15 and 24 points behind the winners in the four full seasons after Sir Alex.
By tonight, they will probably be 15 behind Sheikh Mansour’s runaway leaders Manchester City.
Those four seasons after Fergie have seen City win the title, Chelsea twice and Leicester once.
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City will undoubtedly win it this time — and United, once again, will be nowhere near.
Yet the answer always seems to be more time and more money.
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Jose Mourinho said yesterday that the near £300m he has spent in 18 months at the club has simply not been enough.
Not when Pep Guardiola spends £361.1m on a better squad than the one Mourinho inherited.
Not when Guardiola can outbid him for anyone that is wanted at the Etihad, where money is no object.
The fear is that if Guardiola and the Sheikh stay put, then so will the Premier League title.
So how much more can United throw at this to make it better?
And has the spending always been good? Does Romelu Lukaku look like a Manchester United striker?
Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been poor. Angel Di Maria had too much individual flair for Louis van Gaal. Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind, Ander Herrera — all average.
The recruitment needs to be looked at. Players who fit LVG’s ‘philosophy’ have not always fit Mourinho’s.
It took a good six months to unpick Van Gaal’s work and begin to turn this club round again.
He has done that to an extent. They have a Cup double under their belts from last season — and are now in the knockout stages of the Champions League.
That in itself is progress and a fightback from 2-0 down against Burnley to earn a point showed that this team has not stopped scrapping for their manager.
Still it is not enough. Van Gaal’s frustration was always that people compared his United to the one under Sir Alex.
He was at pains to tell everyone that period of domination was gone, never to return.
But it is not far enough in the past yet for fans to have forgotten, or for some at the club to believe it cannot be retrieved.
Mourinho suggested that the onus on United to push City is only based on history, not reality.
He added: “You think Milan is not as big as us? You think Real Madrid, Inter Milan are not as big as we are? There are many big clubs. I know what a big club is.”
In other words, you can have the history but it does not guarantee you trophies. If your rivals spend big, you need to spend bigger.
Like Van Gaal, he was asking us to lower our expectations, saying that the burden of chasing a team like City needs to be spread around.
Yesterday, United again looked ordinary.
And that is against a team with an average player wage that is only a quarter of that at United.
The maths does not always relate to performances on the pitch. It did not add up for either club at Old Trafford yesterday.
The board believe they have backed Mourinho heavily — and will not have it said otherwise.
But Mourinho does not want to be second best and neither do the fans.
Now the message is out there once again that only money can bridge the gap. It is going to be an interesting few weeks.