CITY have rejected Sir Alex Ferguson's criticisms of their transfer policy after buying two more defenders.

Despite a last-minute hitch on Monday night, the Blues are confident of today wrapping up the £24m purchase of Everton's Joleon Lescott, which will take the club's summer spending over £110m.

And the Blues, who say the Lescott delay is not to do with fitness or money, also snapped up former Barcelona and Arsenal left-back Sylvinho on a free transfer.

In fact, Everton are so sure Lescott will be a City player they have set their sights on luring former Blue Sylvain Distin from Portsmouth as his replacement.

City's big-spending has attracted the snipers throughout the transfer window, especially United boss Sir Alex.

City chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak has responded strongly to Fergie's barbs over City's strategy, and the price they paid for former United loan ace Carlos Tevez. The Blues' judgement has again been questioned after they agreed a fee with Everton which will make Lescott, who passed his medical in Manchester on Monday, the third most expensive defender in football history when they complete the deal.

But Khaldoon said: "Value for money is a very subjective statement.

"The value of a player is up to the club purchasing him, and down to the club's needs.

"Sir Alex Ferguson commented on the price we paid for Carlos Tevez, and Mark's response was spot-on, that the value of Carlos to City is maybe different to his value to United.

"Looking back at every acquisition we have made, I think we have got value, and that the results will show they were the right choices."

City strikers

Ferguson also took a swipe at City for being top-heavy with strikers after they had signed Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz and Emmanuel Adebayor.

But Khaldoon found those comments strange as well, adding: "We had a lot of strikers and there was a joke about Manchester City having 11 strikers.

"The reality was that this was a carefully thought-out strategy of not selling until we brought in the talent we wanted.

"It was the right strategy. We would have hung ourselves out to dry if we had sold all our strikers before we brought in the acquisitions we made. It's one more example of unfounded criticism.

"There are always going to be critics, especially when you are successful, and we have to deal with that. We have done that very well for the last 12 months, and it will only increase.

"We want to prove to everyone we can do it the right way, and that is the way we have been doing it."

The chairman also hinted that the target of a top-six finish which was mentioned to Hughes at the start of the summer may have been revised.

He said: "Sheikh Mansour is very clear in terms of the target he has for us, and we have been working on this to reach full alignment on a realistic target for us this year.

"Given the squad we have and given the time we have had to build the squad, it is a target we will be keeping between us."

Meanwhile, Sylvinho's arrival is expected to trigger the release of Javier Garrido, wanted by Racing Santander, while Lescott's signing will alert a host of clubs queuing for Richard Dunne's services.

What do you think? Have your say.