I'd say there 3 ways of doing it

The City & Liverpool way - The manager identifies the players he needs and the board goes out and signs them

The United way - The CEO with no footballing knowledge or business acumen identifies the players, pays over the odds and then expects his managers to get results

The Spurs way - The CEO does very little and expects the "head coach" to continue to deliver results on the pitch

Even if you take City out of the equation because they are clearly on a different level to everyone else financially, it shouldn't come as a major surprise to see which method leads to trophies and which ones don't