It probably isn't even enough to keep Didier Drogba in Alice bands for a week but for Walsall news that they are about to spend £4,000 on a player creates a piece of recent history.

The coffers at the Bescot Stadium have remained resolutely shut for five long, prudent years but all that should change today when they send the modestly-sized cheque - and the promise of a first-team friendly - off to Chippenham Town in exchange for striker James Constable.

Not since the carefree days of August 2000 have Walsall felt so flush that they could turn on the heating in the press room and still have enough left over to do a form of shopping other than the window variety.

That was when incumbent Ray Graydon was tempted to part with £10,000 for Bristol Rovers' Andy Tilson. Only three days earlier he had dazzled Feirense into selling Jorge Leitao for £150,000. Oh the heady days.

The intervening years have been as long and harsh as the iciest winter as 46 players have come to Walsall for no fee and scores of others on loan deals. Yet this morning Paul Merson wakes up on the brink of making his first cash signing.

The player-manager, still waiting for the 20-year-old to agree wages before he enters Bescot folklore, said: "He wants to be a professional footballer. He has turned down Swansea and Bristol City to come here.

"It's like when Ian Wright came to Arsenal. Because he had not been an apprentice he trained like it was Christmas every day.

"Fair play to Chippenham they have not priced him out of the market," Merson said entirely comfortable with his understatement. "He holds the ball up well, lays it off and gets stuck in. He is big and aggressive."

And expensive too. If Constable does agree terms Merson said that it does not necessarily mean the end for Dean Perrow. The Willenhall striker has been training with the Saddlers and Merson said that he would monitor the situation. Perrow is thought to be available for £200, ten size five balls and a packet of Maynard's wine gums.