Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish admits their summer recruiting has been done with one eye on UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules.
Club owner Randy Lerner has one eye on UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations, which will be implemented based on clubs' financial results from the upcoming season and the 2012-13 campaign.
And McLeish acknowledged: "We're watching the wages don't spiral out of control. Even bringing in free transfers, everybody thinks they don't cost you anything but they could be 50-60 grand a week in wages and it just escalates the wage bill out of all proportion.
"Randy Lerner has already stated that he wants to keep it tighter and work within a means and that's normal, especially with 2013 coming up, and I believe a lot of clubs will follow suit.
"We have a good squad, I have to pay respect to the lads that are already there, they're on big wages and I can't just discard them."