United may pay a dear price for 'Glazernomics', writes SACHIN NAKRANI

REDUCED TO hoping Manchester City suffer a Devon Loch-like collapse in their pursuit of the title, it cannot have escaped Alex Ferguson’s attentions that the man who has edged them to glory has the gallop of a thoroughbred. Yaya Touré was at his rampaging best against Newcastle United on Sunday and Ferguson would have been forgiven for harbouring a mixture of envy and frustration.

No single player can be deemed to have been the difference in this gripping championship battle but Touré perhaps best epitomises why a power shift across Manchester appears not only imminent but also long lasting. He is a €29.9 million midfielder who earns €312,000 a week and, as he showed at St James’s Park, can all but decide big games.

Old Trafford has no one who comes close in comparison.

Indeed it is telling that having stepped out of retirement in January, Paul Scholes is likely to finish the season not only as United’s highest-scoring central midfielder – he has four goals in 20 appearances – but also their most impressive. Any analysis of United’s comparative lack of class in central midfield must take into account the mitigating circumstances, most notably Darren Fletcher’s absence since December with ulcerative colitis, and the foot injury that interrupted Tom Cleverley’s impressive progress four matches into the campaign; but they tell only a small part of a wider story.

Because while City have spent almost €100 million on central midfielders since January 2009, bringing in Touré, Nigel de Jong, Gareth Barry and James Milner, their neighbours have not parted with a single penny for an equivalent player.

Welcome, the cynics would say, to the effects of “Glazernomics”, the top-down rerouting of United’s enormous wealth that has meant the club made a smaller net spend over the past five years than Sunderland, Stoke City and Aston Villa. Ferguson must be cursing a regime which ultimately required him to ask a 37-year-old to come out of retirement to improve a key area of his squad. Scholes returned because Wesley Sneijder and Luka Modric proved out of reach.

Ferguson has, of course, spent big since the Glazers came in, with the team that started against Swansea City on Sunday costing only €1.25 million less to put together than that sent out by Roberto Mancini against Newcastle United earlier in the day (€206m compared to €207m). But it has been evident for some time that the centre of United’s team has needed bolstering and having spent big on three players in that area – Michael Carrick (€23.2m), Owen Hargreaves (€21.2m) and Anderson (€33.7m) – within a 12-month period up to July 2007, Ferguson would clearly have addressed the situation if it had been within his powers to do so.

United may end up losing out on goal difference alone having, as things stand, conceded just six more goals than their “noisy neighbours” and, in Wayne Rooney, having a player who has scored more goals in the Premier League this season than anyone else bar Robin van Persie.

The margin between success and failure will be small, one that could have been bridged had Ferguson been able to sign Sneijder, Modric or another high-end midfielder last summer. Even someone who could have provided cover for Fletcher, Cleverley and, when he was injured, Carrick could have made the difference given, for example, that four of the five defeats United suffered in all competitions at Old Trafford this season came when Carrick was absent from the team.

Nine goals in 41 appearances only begin to tell the story of how Touré has contributed to the club’s rise. “Nothing he does surprises me because big players do important things at vital times,” said Joleon Lescott.

“When you get players like that you also believe in yourself.”

By the numbers: United-City divide

80m

Pounds spent by City on central midfielders since 2008

0m

Pounds spent by United on central midfielders since 2008

89

Points held by United if they win at Sunderland. No team has taken so many yet finished second

7

Years since United last completed a season without winning a trophy