Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested new Chelsea signing Eden Hazard was overpriced while defending the club's own scouting policy.
Climate for buying top players is ridiculous, claims United manager
Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested new Chelsea signing Eden Hazard was overpriced while defending the club's own scouting policy.
The Manchester United boss was interested in taking the Belgium international to Old Trafford - but not at the reported £34million Chelsea paid to French club Lille.
"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 (Samir) 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."
Scouting
Kagawa arrived from Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund and joins fellow new boy Nick Powell in the United midfield.
Powell joined from Crewe and Ferguson believes he is the latest example of the club leading the way in terms of scouting.
"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."
