Then what is the point in us?
No wonder we're laughed at and no players think we're worth sticking around when our own fans have the same opinion.
When Man City got taken over, they went in for: Gomez, Robinho, Berbatov and more. They were 10th!
Most pointless takeover in making us nowhere near better, it seems.
We're roughly 18 months into what could be a multiple year project
Right now we're seventh and we can't offer any more money than the six teams already ahead of us, so naturally the top players will want to go to them over us at this stage
Back when City had their take over, probably the only other club that could match hem financially were Chelsea. Now with the TV deal, everyone has money. Bournemouth are spending millions and offering players like Defoe big contracts FFS, let alone the top sides
Having money is not enough for the best players, they want to win stuff and play in the Champions League and, rightly or wrongly, we live in a "now, now, now!!!" culture, which means that a lot of these top players want to walk into an already successful side rather than getting on board with a project and grafting
Back when City got minted, if you wanted huge money then it was Chelsea, Bayern, Real Madrid or City. Those were your options. These days you can get a decent wedge from so many more teams, so of course those top players are naturally going to be much pickier
So that leaves us with the players who aren't quite at that top level but will be prepared to knuckle down and do the hard graft which is required to get us out of the "best of the rest" bracket and in amongst the actual top teams
People thinking we can just spend money and be right up there are sadly only going to be disappointed. This is going to take time and there's going to be plenty of frustration along the way. The conditions which allowed City to do what they did no longer exist, which means we're going to have go about this differently
A better team to model ourselves off is Tottenham, who have been gradually climbing the ladder over a 5-7 year period, which numerous ups and downs along the way. But now they have a great team, with a new stadium and they're genuine title contenders. That's what we're going to have to try to emulate, because we sadly can't Chelsea or City this. More's the pity