Manchester City have restructured how they spend in the transfer window. I guess they have learnt from past mistakes and losses from big money deals that didn’t go well like Jack Grealish. They are now being careful and being smart with their dealing now not to overspend on any player and have him flop.
Manchester City already has the strongest squad. But they are not afraid to spend money if necessary. They paid 75 million Euro for Marmoush just 5 months ago. You seem to forget that quickly.
Their transfers of Reijnders, Aït-Nouri and Cherki so far total 127 million Euro. That's not a small amount of money. They are still a team that spends big money. With that comes success, last season was an exception.
Yup you are right, Manchester City are still relying on money to build their squad it's just that they are aiming for the position that is needed to take over the position left by another player. Pep is given the opportunity to target any player with sufficient financial backing and Pep knows how to spend money wisely, we can see his steps in this season's transfer window and currently it is still running slowly.