Claudio Ranieri insists there was no temptation for Leicester City to try to compete with the spending power of their Premier League rivals.
The reigning champions did fork out sizeable fees for the likes of Islam Slimani and Ahmed Musa, but were dwarfed in their overall outlay by Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea.
Ranieri claims he would not have wanted to spend big anyway, citing the club's policy of building on solid and sustainable foundations.
"I don't want to spend £200 million. I just want to bring the right players," the Italian said in quotes reported by the Daily Mail.
"Our budget is okay. We spend what we need.
"It is not important that they [their Premier League rivals] spend a lot of money. We spent what we needed to spend. Not to excess.
"We follow the chairman's philosophy. He wants us to grow up slowly, to make a solid basement. I'm sure we have a solid basement and now we are building the first floor up."
The Foxes' title defence has started in modest fashion, with a return of seven points from five matches, while Pep Guardiola's City boast a 100 per cent record at the summit.
