The Sky Bet Championship is becoming like Premier League 2 in terms of transfer window spending, says Birmingham boss Gary Rowett.
The second tier of English football saw the big guns pulling out the chequebook in a bid to make a return to the top flight, with Newcastle and Aston Villa both breaking the record for the most expensive player in the division.
Matt Ritchie's £12m move to Newcastle topped the list before Ross McCormack arrived at Aston Villa of a fee rising to £14m, with other summer moves of Dwight Gayle (£10m) and Alex Pritchard (£8m) also making the top ten.
With Championship sides throwing cash at the promotion push, Blues boss Rowett believes the division is morphing into a second Premier League in terms of spending but his side won't be joining the race.
"It's always a difficult one. I saw QPR get beaten 6-0 by Newcastle and of course, Jimmy would do what most of us would and say that they've got amazing quality of nearly £60m," the Blues boss told the EFL Weekly Podcast.
"I think between them and Aston Villa, it's something like £110m which I bet if you roll back five or six years, that would be Premier League spending undoubtedly, possibly even top end Premier League spending so it has changed.
"I think the Championship is becoming Premier League 2 if you want to put it that way, although I think the quality is still a long way from the Premier League.
"What you have to do is look at your own team, look at where you are financially and what's the best possible way of finding results and some teams will do it one way and some teams will do it another way but we've found a way that we think can get us results.
"I think even before a lot of these teams came into the division, even last year, our budget would have been bottom half realistically but we've improved that this year.
"We've had some good backing from the new investors if you like, and the club have been really progressive in trying to give us a chance of getting some improvement out of the side, as small as that might have been in comparison to other clubs.
"You have to find a team that will work incredibly hard and I've said it before, my aim is to make us the fittest, strongest and most organised team in the division.
"I'm not suggesting I'm going to achieve that but for us to win games regularly, that has to be our minimum requirement and then the more we can get quality into our team, which we have done with the likes of Che Adams and Robert Tesche coming into the group.
"Again, it's a big disparity but you can say that about any division probably across Europe."
Birmingham have made a great start to the Championship season, losing just once to local rivals Wolves and have already beaten Leeds, Fulham and Norwich to sit fifth in the table after seven games.
"I think we started the first three games fairly solid and resolute without being as attacking as we would like but sometimes it's not a bad thing to do at the start of the season, not to concede too many goals," Rowett added.
"We had a little blip at Wolves and we played really well in the first half. We were 1-0 up then had a really uncharacteristically poor second 45 minutes which I think put everyone on a little bit of a downer, the fans included.
"I think after the last three games though, it's turned out to be a really solid start to the season and after doing exactly the same last year, losing a few players and after quite a lot of transition during the summer when everyone felt this division would be far more competitive, to see us in and around it and being early challengers at that end - I know it's very, very early before the league settles - we're quite satisfied.
"It sounds ridiculous but you always have a little look at the table. Plenty of people say publicly 'oh the table means nothing now', well of course it doesn't mean anything now but you'd rather be up there and I think it gives everyone around the club a bit of a lift.
"Of course, if you lose a couple on the spin, or win a couple then the places you can drop is quite astounding, but you'd rather be up there and I make no bones about that. I'd rather look at the table and see us up around the top end."
Next up for Birmingham is the visit of Sheffield Wednesday to St Andrews live on Sky Sports this Saturday, and Rowett thinks last season's play-off finalists are starting to find their stride after their Wembley defeat to Hull.
"They've got quality and some very good players. They did the double over us last year which we were disappointed about, particularly in the home game because we thought we played really well.
"They've got a really good side and a really good blend. They started the season slowly and I think there's always a hangover from Wembley and a few things that go on when you've been successful, but they look like they've just started to settle down a little bit.
"They are a very good side so we'll be mindful of that and we'll have to make sure we're at our best."
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