Ashton aside, my point was more that a player who had scored close on 50 goals in his last 100 games was very much an understandable signing and my recollection is that there was a lot of optimism amongst the support over the signing. He was only about 26 or 27 and should have been just entering his peak years. Why wouldn't we sign him ?

History shows that Beattie had basically peaked at Southampton and his time here was more than disappointing. But that's very much a hindsight take. Some signings work out, some don't. This clearly didn't but doesn't alter the fact that it appeared at the time a good capture and Moyes certainly wasn't getting slated for the signing.

Ultimately Beattie was sold for £4m so all things considered it was far from a business disaster, not like many of the disasters of the last decade. Thank the lord for Sheff U*

*sorry Tom O'B if lurking.