It was Ferguson himself who claimed there were no constraints from the Glazers. He claimed the reason for the lack of spending was down to there being no “value in the market”. If you read my post you would see that I didn’t blame him – Whoever held back the investment is to blame. Most likely the Glazers but impossible to know for sure. They’ve shown a willingness to invest since, but from a weaker position of desperation. Maybe Ferguson could have lobbied for more funds, maybe not. The reality was our decline can be traced back to losing Tevez and Ronaldo, the great defensive unit ageing and replacing them with the likes of Owen, Valencia, Young, Smalling, Jones, Valencia etc. There was a marked drop in quality that we were in for in this period and it’s still costing us today. VDS was pretty much the only player in that 2008 side we effectively replaced under Ferguson.
We should have bullied City in the transfer market. Gone in for Aguero, Silva, Touré and forced them to pay obscene money in the way we were forced to do with Sanchez, when the only thing they could offer over us was more money. We should have been picking off the best talent in the league because we were the most attractive proposition at the time – The dominant side. We picked a bad time to go for austerity.
He did deliver it. Largely due to a short term investment that paid off big time in RVP. But it was papering over cracks which has become extremely evident now. That was only 6 years ago – Look at where those players are now. Absolutely horrendous group of players for a manager to inherit.