This is an excerpt from this week's Claret and Amber Alert, a free Motherwell newsletter written by Graeme McGarry that goes out every Thursday at 6pm. To sign up, click here.

I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. Getting attached to loan players is a mug’s game.

It was John Spencer that started it. I know technically he didn’t leave the club in the end, but I’m not convinced it was the same player Everton sent back up the road after he signed a permanent deal.

Motherwell have long made use of the loan market, and understandably so. But the departures of those who come in on a temporary basis and do well for the club do seem to sting that little bit more when there is no transfer fee coming the other way to compensate.

Remember Mark Gower, around the same time as Spencer? Then there was Alan McCormack a few years later. Krisztián Vadócz was decent too, as was Maros Klimpl. Calum Elliott, who got travel sick commuting to Motherwell from Edinburgh around this time, less so.

There was John Ruddy, Lukas Jutkiewicz and Nick Blackman. Then, for balance, there was Yassin Moutouakil and Jake Taylor. There have been a host of names that have come and gone on loan over the years, some leaving their mark - for better or worse – and some to be instantly forgotten.

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In more recent times, the likes of Matt Penney, James Furlong, Brodie Spencer and now Georgie Gent have all done well for the club, and hopefully Adam Montgomery does likewise. But in Mika Biereth, Stuart Kettlewell appeared to have really uncovered a gem, a striker who looked as though he could be the difference between surviving in the Premiership this season or not.

So, when he was pictured training with Arsenal over the winter break, it understandably caused a bit of a flap among the Motherwell faithful. Fear not, though, the club reassured, he had not been recalled and he would return to Fir Park for the second half of the campaign.

Or so they thought. Alas, the relief was all too fleeting, and as soon as Arsenal had the opportunity to farm the forward out to what they consider to be a higher level, they took it. Them's the breaks, alas, when signing loan players.

What has compounded the feeling of dismay around Biereth’s departure is the reality of the club’s current place in the grand scheme of the transfer market, several rungs below even comparable sized competitors when it comes to finances, it would appear.

The club have just been gazumped by Dundee as they attempted to bring Curtis Main back to Fir Park, after all. Based upon which, I wouldn’t be holding my breath that Motherwell are one of the suitors capable of reaching the financial threshold required to bring Kevin van Veen back to Scotland, either.

With Conor Wilkinson now having also departed, there should be a little wiggle room when it comes to the budget. But seeing as Jim McMahon is still waiting patiently by his phone for the imminent call from Taylor Swift, it seems that Kettlewell will again be forced to look to the loan market in England to fill what is a massive void in the Motherwell attack.

Given the circumstances, such short-term thinking is absolutely fine. Motherwell need someone of comparable quality to Biereth who can come in and hit the ground running. It is not too big a stretch to say that Kettlewell’s ability to bring in the right man could make or break the season.

But I worry in the long term whether or not this model is really sustainable. Yes, it could be looked upon as a positive that clubs higher up the food chain deem Motherwell a great place for their young talent to come and develop. But what of Motherwell’s own young talent?

It stands to reason that the prospects at clubs like Arsenal will be levels above the kids that are on the periphery of Motherwell’s first team squad, but at what point does the stymying of opportunity for our own talent become too big a price to pay to have these players for a single season - at best? And it seems, for the end result of simply treading water in the Premiership?

It’s an interesting question, and one I have gone back and forth on. Without Biereth’s goals and assists, for example, where would Motherwell be right now? But that should be the benchmark for a loan signing, for me. Someone that the club are certain will undoubtedly improve the team, rather than pad out the squad and even keep our own kids off the bench.

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Theo Bair, on account of his three goals in two games prior to the winter break, is suddenly the top striker at the club. The injury-plagued Jon Obika and Oli Shaw, a loan signing who, conversely, has yet to make any sort of impact, are the back-up options.

Those three strikers have six goals between them for the campaign. Bair has five of those, while 17-year-old Luca Ross has equalled Obika’s tally of one from around seven minutes of action.

So, based upon those stats, my panic button has well and truly been pressed, and I absolutely agree that Kettlewell needs to find a more reliable source of goals by whatever means necessary in this window.

I just won’t be getting too attached to him. Well, I'll try…