Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested Chelsea paid too much for new signing Eden Hazard.
Hazard last month joined Chelsea from Lille in a £32million deal after snubbing both United and rivals Manchester City.
The Belgium international recently admitted he held talks with the Scot about a move to Old Trafford, but Ferguson believes the 21-year-old may not have been worth his asking price.
"There is a borderline in terms of what you would think is a good signing for United," he said.
"I see some values on players, like Hazard for instance. To me it was a lot of money. He's a good player, but £34m?
"What we're finding anyway, the climate for buying these top players - not just the transfer fees, the salaries, agents' fees - is just getting ridiculous now.
"In the Hazard deal, Chelsea paid the agent £6m. The [Sami]) Nasri situation was the same.
"It's all about what you think is value for a player. I am not envious of those deals at all. We placed a value on Hazard which was well below what they were talking about.
"So if it doesn't work, well we're not worried about that. We think we've got good value in [Shinji] Kagawa."
Kagawa recently joined the Red Devils from Borussia Dortmund, while United have also brought in England Under-18 international Nick Powell.
Powell joined from Crewe and Ferguson believes he is the latest example of the club leading the way when it comes to scouting players.
"We scout well," he added.
"Sometimes we do the scouting for other clubs. The minute the agent knew we'd spoken to Powell, I think every club was in with offers. But we'd done the deal.
"Whenever we show interest in a player it activates the situation with other clubs. But we've done well over the years. We've bought well. One or two bad ones, no doubt about that, but you handle that.
"The big difference is when the academy started 10 years ago we had to change our scouting in terms of abroad. So that's increased.
"Looking at countries like Brazil, Mexico and through South America. France too, we're all over Europe now."