Reading comments of articles these days, it appears City fans know way more about the history of the game than Liverpool or United ones, who wont stop using the word history.
I wasn't aware of this but I checked it out and he's spot on.
1989-90 Topflight Transfers
They did invest heavily just before the 90s arrived, to stand them in good stead to benefit from the influx in cash(maybe they got a tip off that they would be able to pay off the debts they incurred here?). Fergie broke previous spending records in 1989-90. They spent £10.10m that season(close to £9m net spend) when a lot of topflight clubs were barely breaking £1m mark, furthermore what were considered big spenders at the time, were spending between £2-3m maximum that season and normally with some big sales to allow for it. Tottenham's spending the season before must have been seen as excessive for the time, when they bought Gascoigne for £4.8m but their net spend was only £3.2m.
In short United blew previous transfer windows out of the water and it wasn't like they were anywhere near the biggest club, they had just finished 11th place going into that transfer window and hadn't won the title in 22years. After that we all know the story with the formation of the Premier League and uneven splits. "Earned not bought" though...