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And £350k for Shaun Mcskimming

When you think of the way he burned through the Phil O'Donnell transfer fee, bringing so little value to the club in return, it was criminal. Stevie Kirk, Paul McGrillen plus £150,00 to Falkirk to land Eddie May - ludicrous.

Forward thinking and ambitious costs serious cash, John Boyle tried that approach to make us the " third force in Scotland " as he put it and we all know how that ended. Football clubs are not normal businesses the successful one all have one or more very wealthy Individuals or companies behind them. At our level its a different world our average crowd is probably well under 5k, combine that with limited sponsorship, crap TV deals, etc and we don't have a lot of cash to spare so what we offer gets us the level of players we Currently have playing for us, but on those criteria we have done well over the years, top flight Football, cup win, euro qualification etc so we are where we are. If people want regular trophies, European group stage football, etc then unless we can persuade some multi millionaire to invest in the club its not going to happen. Bottom line we are a small provincial club suffering fan wise from our proximity to the ugly sisters which limits our spending power, but for me I wouldn't change a thing we've done allright.

Still not as bad as McLeish paying £200,000 for John Hendry!!

Just to remind folk we would have been in championship if it weren't for Kelly ..... remember Aaron Chapman

For me, it's not actively signing absolute bollocks, for a start. Honestly man, anyone with half a brain could see that our signings this summer were going to fail. I know I got grief for not buying into "the human project," but I was astounded as to why we'd waste what little money we had on players like that, some on multi-year contracts. There's absolutely no reason why we can't look to improve things above management level. We see other smaller clubs who have implemented sound signing policies and departments without spending a fortune. It would actually likely end up saving us money, as we hopefully wouldn't need to rush out every January and splurge on a new cast of players to try and replace the turgid crap we bought in the summer. Which, funnily enough, we're likely going to have to do this season again. Then we'll get to the summer and whoever is in charge will have the unenviable task of convincing some poor sap at another club to take the likes of Bair and Obika.

I'm sure they exist, but I don't personally know anyone who thinks dropping down a division would be beneficial in any way. I share your opinion on what we should be aiming for - and that's what's been delivered over the past 20 years or so. If you think we're pissing money up against a wall to fix mistakes now, you should've witnessed the financial incontinence some of our previous boards and managers suffered from. Tommy McLean built a couple of great sides and brought great players to the club, but god knows how many absolute duds he shelled out on at the same time. It's always been a hit or a miss with signings, but a manager can't get the cheque book out to rectify their mistakes whenever they need to anymore. Almost every player they bring in is either a reject from somewhere else or completely untried at our level, and one bad transfer window could see them sacked long before they have a chance to fix it.

What a double act that would be

I suspect it's an unfortunate fact. They might have been slightly higher during periods when we were doing well, but not that much higher. If success on the field doesn't attract more punters, what would? I'm no looking for an argument either. We all want our club to achieve as much as it can and I don't think we should accept endless mediocrity. But we have the fan base we have had for a long, long time, which does limit clubs, unless they have a rich benefactor (and we've all see what happens when they lose interest). I'll ask the same question I've asked before on this subject: when you look at the entire history of Motherwell FC, do you believe we are underachieving by staying in the top division for nearly 40 years, finishing in the top 6 reasonably regularly, reaching several cup finals and qualifying for Europe? If you think we should be doing more than that, I'd be interested to hear what that would mean for you.

then the window opens, we get rid of shaw and wilkinson, put there 2 wages together, and .big sexy kev rides into FP and saves SKs job we stay up the end

Craft Beer night?