In what must surely be the most bizarre statement in recent times, Manuel Pellegrini has blamed being outspent by his rivals as the reason they won’t win anything this year.

Seriously.

The City manager said

“We cannot win trophies every year.

“It’s impossible, especially this year.

“Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool spent more money and they have very strong squads.

“I don’t think it is a bad position or there is shame to be in second place for this squad. 

“Maybe I can complain about other things this season – the way we lost in the FA Cup and League Cup, but in the Premier League it’s not easy to be in second place when you have five or six strong teams.”

So let’s take a look at this, shall we.

During the summer of 2014 the following amounts were spent by the teams named by Pellegrini (nett spend in brackets). He’s right, other clubs did spend more than him (mostly):

  1. Chelsea £118,300,000 (£113,200,000) (nothing like buying a title, eh, Jose?)
  2. Manchester United £145,500,000 (£104,200,000)
  3. Arsenal £95,600,000 (£65,400,000)
  4. Manchester City £87,500,000 (£60,000,000)
  5. Liverpool £117,000,000 (£38,380,000)

But Pellegrini isn’t just using players he purchased in the summer, is he?

Over the last five seasons (up to 13/14), Manchester City have spent an average of £27.45m per season, outdone only by Chelsea (£27.8m).

Arsenal, on the other hand, have averaged £5.57m (outspent per season by Aston Villa, Tottenham and Sunderland), Manchester United £17.3m, and Liverpool £14.18m.

Even if you just take the total amount spent over the past five years, it looks like this:

  1. Chelsea £1,060,949 (£639,674,000)
  2. Man City £893,880,000 (£631,427,000)
  3. Man United £759,350,000 (£399,310,000)
  4. Liverpool £767,305,000 (£326,215,000)
  5. Arsenal £531,565,000 (£128,191,000)

Manchester City have already come under fire from UEFA for breaching their FFP regulations so it seems something of a joke that he would turn around and blame being outspent, and to then include Arsenal in that statement is just laughable.