The real reason is the rest of the league is so crap there hasn't been the need to sort out problems. Real and barca have been in a spending peeing match for so long they've always kept improving even when they didn't have to.
In the premier league Utd had a team capable of winning the title, so why sell your crap and buy big and pay out more wages...... when you don't have to.
It really is as simple as that for Utd, they didn't need to improve, and didn't, and that is now coming back to bite them in the ass HARD. Arsenal have been getting worse for over 5 years and Chelsea never came close to putting together a squad on the scale/quality City have. Chelsea never really had more than two real strikers and most of the time one of them was woefully out of form and beyond the second striker the backup has been crap(or simply not played). There isn't any reason that with Chelsea's spending they shouldn't have ended up with 4 world class strikers like City did. They spent so much on cack midfielders they got rid of a year later, and moving on quality wingers to bring in worse ones and so much on expensive yet still unproven in the top league strikers.
Utd need shot of, Gibson, Fletcher, Anderson, Carrick, Evra, Rio, Macheda, Park, at the least. Utd fans generally won't agree but I think rooney at 250k a week is just laughable. he's not the best striker in the league, he's not the best midfielder, the best play maker, passer or, anything. 250k a week because he's in the England team(yet might not go to the Euro's) is laughable. That wage alone would pay for Ba, Cabye, Tiote with money to spare....... and be a MUCH better team for it. In fact, I'd put those three at MAYBE 150k a week together, the other 100k a week would almost in a single year have paid for two of their transfer's as well, that is how ridiculous 250k a week for him is.
I would say there are two teams who have genuinely improved over the past 3-4 years, City and Spurs, and look where they are.
Even teams with quality players get stale, run out of idea's and become predictable to the opposition.
Carrick when he joined a fresh and quality Utd squad wasn't an obvious weakness(though he was), he isn't any worse now, the team around him is worse so the team itself has less control and his lack of ability in that role is more apparent, nothing more or less. Teams now know they can run past him with little chance of him winning the ball off them, slow as hell and no real threat either.
I think Spurs are playing well, and have improved but not dramatically, the mere action of improving a bit rather than going miles backwards has pushed them beyond Arsenal/Pool and probably Utd as well now.
It really isn't difficult to see, Arsenal's midfield used to have Gilberto, Vieira, Edu, Fabregas, Pires, Reyes, Freddie in it, we now have Gervinho, who can't pass, shoot, or do much of anything, Theo who can't pass, shoot or do much of anything, Song, who compared to Gilberto simply isn't a footballer.
Fergie and Wenger have been WAY to easy on up and coming players and when they failed to come up to a high enough level, rather than cutting them and trying again.......... just stuck with it, again because it was easy and for years Champs league qualification was easy.
