Is it time for the Glazers to flash the cash to keep up with noisy neighbours?

As they sat aboard their helicopter heading to London from Manchester on Sunday night, the Glazer family may have wished English football had something akin to the NFL salary cap in place.

It is, after all, the colour of Manchester City’s money that has projected them to the top of the Barclays Premier League.

The United owners’ beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers - who lost to the Chicago Bears at Wembley on Sunday night - are not allowed to pay their squad any more than other teams pay theirs. It keeps the National Football League as a relatively level playing field.

At least that’s the theory.

Time to spend? The Glazers may have to splash the cash to keep up with Man City

If that was the case over here then United’s dominance at the top of the English game would be under less of a threat.

In Sir Alex Ferguson they have the country’s most eminent manager and their youth and scouting system can still be relied upon to produce and find players like Darren Fletcher, Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones and Javier Hernandez.

In the Premier League, though, money can take you a long way. It has already brought Chelsea three league titles and is now playing a very large part in giving City a very real chance of their first.

As such, it leaves the Glazers - and United - on the horns of a familiar dilemma.

The champions have the financial wherewithal to invest heavily in players if they wish. Chief executive David Gill regularly says this. United, though, have always loathed paying over the odds for talent. They loathe paying inflated wages and loathe feeling that players they wish to sign are calling the shots.

Too expensive: United decided against signing Wesley Sneijder in the summer

In short, that is why they abandoned their attempts to sign Wesley Sneijder from Inter Milan in the summer. The figures simply got too hot for them to handle.

On the face of it, such a policy is understandable, admirable even. But as the Glazers looked down from the Old Trafford directors’ box yesterday they may have had pause to question it just a little.

This remains a very good United team, of course. It is a team of talent, efficiency and promise. Ferguson has delivered players like Welbeck, Jones, Hernandez, Chris Smalling, Tom Cleverley and Ashley Young in recent years. They will ensure that United remain competitive long after he has stood down.

Nevertheless, as City bring in players like David Silva (£25million), Mario Balotelli (£23m) and Sergio Aguero (£35m), United supporters are entitled to wonder if it is time for their club to push their own boundaries a little.

Is a player like Sneijder essential to their squad? Of course not. They have already beaten Chelsea and smashed eight past Arsenal without him this season. At times they have played some terrific football.

Big spenders: Mario Balotelli and Sergio Aguero cost a combined £58m

Crucial to the debate, though, is that Sneijder would undoubtedly improve United. If Ferguson didn’t think that then he would not have gone in to last summer’s transfer window chasing him.

Fletcher and the Brazilian Anderson proved inadequate in the face of City’s Yaya Toure (£24m) and Gareth Barry (£12m) on Sunday. On this occasion at least, they were second best. It is something that should give United pause for thought.

Perhaps Ferguson smelt a rat in the summer. Perhaps he suspected Sneijder was motivated by money. If that’s the case then it’s the manager’s prerogative to scrap the deal.

But one suspects United - not for the first time in the last decade - simply turned tail when the numbers got silly.

The question is: can they continue doing that forever?