Let’s look at transfer spending over the past few seasons:

Arsenal:

Vermaelen, Campbell. About £11.2 million. Finished 3rd (+1).

Lehmann, Chamakh, Ebecilio, Squillaci, Miyaichi, Koscielny. About £12.1 million. Finished 4th (-1).

Santos, Gervinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Campbell, Mertesacker, Benayoun, Arteta, Eisfeld, Henry, Park, Jenkinson. About £61.8 million. Finished 3rd (+1).

Chelsea:

Matic, Turnbull, Zhirkov. About £21.8 million. Finished 1st (+2).

Kalas, Luiz, Ramires, Benayoun, Torres. About £115.2 million. Finished 2nd (-1).

Romeu, Courtois, Bamford, Mata, De Bruyne, Cahill, Meireles, Lukaku, Davila. About £93.25 million. Finished 6th (-4).

United:

Obertan, Valencia, Biram Diouf, Pogba, Owen. About £27 million. Finished 2nd (-1).

Lindegaard, Smalling, Hernandez, Bebe. About £26.5 million. Finished 1st (+1).

Veseli, Jones, De Gea, Young, Scholes. About £55.7 million. Finished 2nd (-1).

City:

Tevez, Taylor, Viera, Barry, Johnson, Lescott, Sylvinho, Zander, Santa Cruz, Toure. About 118.5. Finished 5th (+5).

Boateng, Silva, Henshall, Balotelli, Dzeko, Assulin, Kolarov, Toure, Milner, Rusnak. About £172.5 million. Finished 3rd (+2).

Aguero, Nasri, Hargreaves, Savic, Pizarro, Clichy, Pantilimon. About £88.2 million. Finished 1st (+2).

Liverpool:

Mavinga, Johnson, Aquilani, King, Rodriguez. About £44.8 million. Finished 7th (-5).

Suarez, Jones, Konchesky, Meireles, Thomas, Embarlo, Jovanovic, Carroll, Wilson, Cole, Shelvey, Poulson. About £97.7 million. Finished 6th (+1).

Coates, Bellamy, Adam, Enrique, Downing, Pelosi, Doni, Carlos, Henderson. About £67.7 million. Finished 8th (-2).

Conclusions:

Whilst City have certainly improved as a result of their spending, teams such as Liverpool and Chelsea if anything seem to do worse when they spend more: so it isn’t nearly that simple. ‘Buying the title’ is not the easy short-cut it is made out to be, and City have benefited just as much from managerial stability and a consistent strategy as they have from pure financial force.