That true, not their fault we gave insane wages - but in terms of buying and selling, they have been on kind of rampage under Conte. Compared to how tight they were under Poch and even Mourinho.
Aye, and just to clarify I'm not suggesting that the wages spent mean anything when it comes to someone like ETH, who has the toughest job of the top 6 atm and the wage bill has no relation to where United should end up (even though I also imagine the United wage bill is significantly smaller than it was this time last season).
Just that when there's a few teams above you it's hard to bridge that gap. As you said though they've gone players in a way Spurs usually haven't in recent times, and from afar it looks like they've offered him the control they've been hesitant to grant to other managers in the past (though this is probably to do with the stadium situation that africanspur mentioned above and his status). I like Conte a lot and think they've done well in the market, but even with those positives and having Kane and Son my gut feeling is that they'll narrowly miss out on top 4.