Hibernian boss Terry Butcher has only spent £8,000 on transfers during his time managing in Scotland and says it is unlikely he will add to that meagre tally while in charge at Easter Road.
The former England skipper's predecessor Pat Fenlon shelled out £200,000 to bring Swindon striker James Collins north during the summer.
But Butcher has enjoyed his fair share of luck in the transfer market combing England's lower leagues for players during stints at previous clubs Motherwell and Inverness and plans to stick by that recruitment model in Edinburgh.
The Leith manager said: "We won't be buying players. I think I bought just one player at Inverness, that was Danny Williams for £5,000 from Chester.
"I don't spend a lot of money. I think at Motherwell I spent £3,000 on a goalkeeper, Colin Meldrum, to get him out of his contract at Forfar. That was big money for us.
"So I don't think I'll spend much money here either. I said to the chairman Rod Petrie that if we are spending big money to bring a player in, that's money we could use to bring in two or three free transfers.
"We will see. You never know. I could end up spending £75,000 on a player who is out of contract at the end of the season if we feel it is the right thing and the Mr Petrie gives me the money."
Hibs host St Mirren on Saturday but despite being linked with a string of players, Butcher does not expect to have any new faces in his squad in time for the Buddies' visit.
Among the players linked with Easter Road switches are Sunderland trio Craig Lynch, Duncan Watmore and Charis Mavrias, as well as one of Butcher's former Inverness charges, James Vincent.
But all he said ahead of the Buddies' visit was: "No-one is in or out at the moment. Sometimes it's a case of crossing people off your list more than adding to it or trying to secure players. A lot of clubs have done a lot of business but we are not aware of anything that is going to improve us.
"So for now, we are keeping our powder dry.
"But that's not to say we won't be doing anything because the last two weeks of a transfer window are normally the busiest period and when we do our business.
"Sometimes it's about waiting for the clubs down south to make their moves first, because that then frees them up to move on some of the guys not featuring much.
"There are times you speak to clubs about players early on in January but they are not available. Then three weeks later they are back on asking if we are still interested.
"I call it the Dominoes World Championships. When someone signs for a club, it frees someone else up and it becomes a domino effect. We want to take part in the Dominoes World Championships ourselves and do a bit of business if we can."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article