WHAT'S that noise? Yes, it must be the January transfer window creaking ajar, and the annual wintry blast of tumbleweed which blows across the Scottish game at this time of year. One key addition here or there during this month can make or break a season, but aside from a few loan moves between the Ladbrokes Premiership and the Championship, things have been predictably slow north of the border thus far, a far cry from the multi million pound deals brewing down south. But, for the right player at the right price, there is still money to be made in Scottish football. Here, while we wait for the underwhelming late rush, Herald Sport casts its eye over the six of the best pieces of pound-for-pound Scottish transfer business in history. Six which didn't turn out quite so well will be listed tomorrow.

1. Henrik Larsson (Feyenoord to Celtic, £600,000)

TWO hundred and forty two goals in 315 matches. Seven years at Celtic, four SPL titles, two Scottish League Cups and two Scottish Cups. The top goalscorer in the Scottish Premier League for five of the six seasons that he competed in, with the only exception being the 1999–2000 season, most of which he missed with a broken leg. And all this for the princely sum of £600,000, a release fee which was activated in his contract at Feyenoord after a dispute with manager Arie Haan and a lengthy legal wrangle. Wily Wim Jansen was alive to that fact and while there was no re-sale value, with the player leaving on a free transfer to Barcelona in the summer of 2004, this was surely Scotland's shrewdest signing. Jansen left shortly afterwards but his successor Jo Venglos did not bad either, particularly with the mercurial Lubomir Moravcik (MSV Duisburg to Celtic, £370,000)

2. Jean-Alain Boumsong (Auxerre to Rangers, free) (Rangers to Newcastle, £8m)

THE deal which Rangers did for the Cameroon-born, French international centre half seemed too good to be true, and not just because he received around £630,000 of his remuneration for the period by way of an EBT. A French cup winner for Auxerre in 2003, Boumsong arrived at Alex McLeish era Ibrox under the Bosman ruling the following summer, lighting up Scottish football with some assured displays at the back. If you had blinked, you might have missed him though, as he was in a fast car to Graeme Souness's Newcastle just six months into a five-year contract. While the Stevens report into corruption said there were "unresolved issues" about the transfer, further clarification said that neither the Premier League nor investigation body Quest had any issues in regard to Souness's role in transfers at Newcastle United at the time nor found any irregular payments to agent Willie McKay. A dodgy spell alongside Titus Bramble didn't exactly help matters.

3. Moussa Dembele (Fulham to Celtic, £400,000)

CELTIC would rather keep hold of him for a while, but at worst Dembele will be a latter-day Boumsong with some loose change thrown in. In fact, the business that Brendan Rodgers did last summer when he persuaded this 20-year-old Frenchman to join them on a cut-price cross border deal could in time go down as the daddy of them all in a Scottish context. While the Parkhead side will almost certainly keep hold of their star striker during this window, a bidding war could break out amongst some of the biggest clubs in world football at any time for this player, despite the fact these same clubs could really have snared for a fee in the region of £6 or £7m during the summer. These giant institutions will want the best years of his career to be spent with them and Celtic will be compensated generously for whatever time he spends in Scotland.

4. Victor Wanyama (Beerschot to Celtic, £900,000). (Celtic to Southampton, £13.5m), (Southampton to Tottenham £11m)

THERE were some big failures along the way too - more about them tomorrow - but Celtic's signing policy in the Neil Lennon/John Park era also bore some remarkable fruit. You could throw Kris Commons into the mix here - plucked from Derby County for a cross border fee of £300,000 - or even Virgil van Dijk but Wanyama is perhaps the case par excellence. While picking up a talent like this for less than a million pounds was always going to be a steal, the Kenyan has been the gift that keeps giving for the Parkhead side. A goal and commanding display in the Champions League win against Barcelona always helps, but they recouped more than that alone this summer when he moved from the South coast to White Hart Lane this summer.

5. Davie Cooper (Rangers to Motherwell, £50,000)

COOPER was 33-and-a-half when his former team-mate Tommy McLean paid the princely sum of £50,000 to take him to Lanarkshire. Whatever expectations the club's fans had back then, he exceeded them with 150 appearances for the Steelmen over four and half years and a major contribution to the club's first major trophy in 39 years, the 1991 Scottish Cup. He earned a further four caps for his country whilst wearing the claret and amber of Motherwell for his club and was embarking upon a coaching career at Clydebank when he died of a brain haemorrhage on 23 March 1995.

6. Isma (Rio Ave to St Mirren, loan)

Esmaël Ruti Tavares Cruz da Silva Gonçalves - St Mirren's big-hearted club secretary spared parents a fortune when they merely put his nickname Isma on the back of his shirt - didn't lack for confidence. Plucked on loan from Rio Ave, with a bit of help from the Hearts connection of Austin McCann (then St Mirren assistant manager) and Ian Cathro (then Rio Ave assistant), shy and retiring Isma hailed himself as "the next Drogba" on his arrival in Scottish football. A debut goal in the Paisley side's 3-2 League Cup semi-final win against Celtic saw this strong-running striker start to live up to the billing. While he would also score a quarter-final goal against the Parkhead side in a 2-1 Scottish Cup defeat, the daddy of the lot was an equaliser against Hearts on League Cup final day as St Mirren landed their first major title since 1987.