Stan Ternent paid £1m for Ian Moore in November 2000, and matched that in January 2002 for Robbie Blake.

And as Coyle looks to bring young blood into his squad, he accepts that comes at a cost.

But he intends to balance that up by landing players whose value will only increase, while the club progresses in like manner.

As Coyle starts to build his team, after inheriting the squad from Steve Cotterill in November, he has already made offers for "a couple" of players, although he is keeping his cards close to his chest.

That seven-figure barrier, however, may have to be shattered in the process: "I would always envisage trying to break transfer records.

"But the bottom line is that wouldn't be down to me, that would be down to the finance involved.

"There are players out there who, I think, would be in that bracket.
"The difficulty within it is that, if it was £1m, after paying that, is what their personal terms would be.

"So it's about what the whole package is going to cost you.

"That's where the bits and pieces of trying to be ahead of the game on the football side of it comes in, trying to know who is available and what they're available at, and what the personal terms would be.

"Because the bottom line would be there'd be no point in taking it any further if it's going to be out of the realms of possibility."

Coyle has a budget to work with, but he added: "Budgets are always flexible. At the end of the day, even with regards to salary, if you don't get a player, then that money might become available for whatever reason, so there's not a hard and fast ruling that you've got £1m to spend or £10m to spend.

"I'll go and target a few players, and if I feel that if some are achievable, if we can get to it then we'll take that on.

"I'm not looking to pin anyone down to the exact amount of money available, because things change daily in a football club.

"The club lost £4m last year, so you have to understand that as well.

"But if we want to take it on, which we do, and further the team and the club's ambition, then we need an injection of some players into the squad that are better than what we've got, with younger legs, enthusiasm and a bit of vibrancy."

Youthful vigour is high on his agenda, and Coyle continued: "I've targeted players and I've already made some offers on the basis of that, and we'll see what happens.

"We've said from day one we do need to get some players in.
"I want to get some younger legs into the team, but that will come at a cost.

"The reason I say that is that, if you look back over the years, when money has been spent, I think, with all due respect to the players involved, it's been spent on players whose value, at the age their at, there's more chance of it depreciating rather than appreciating.

"I think if we are going to spend money on players, we would hope they're a good age and can get better, and that value would be an asset as opposed to depreciating, and not ever getting the chance to recover that.

"But I have had three or four meetings with representatives, I've put a couple of offers in to clubs already, and we'll wait and see what comes back."

Many clubs, in the Premier League era, have built teams to get up, only to dismantle them and start again.

But Coyle is in the process of putting together a young squad that can grow and develop together, with the hunger and desire to succeed, and he said: "What we're going to be trying to do is not build a team that would service for one season, but would service for a few years.

"It won't be possible that everyone we get is of that ilk, but we've certainly targeted some younger ones like that, who have experience of playing football at a very high level.

"What we're trying to do is build a team for years to come, not build a team then dismantle it, build a team then dismantle it.

"To have any sort of relevant success and be a winning team, then you have to have that, build it and keep it going.

"It's a very difficult task in football to have a team, dismantle it, then have another team.

"I think anybody that's had any reasonable success, it's been shown they've had time to build it and put it all together, and all the bits and pieces of the jigsaw fall into place."

Coyle has already spoken of his belief that the club can compete in the Championship with the big-hitters, even if the crowds and finances are dwarfed by many clubs, and it is just a case of being canny in the transfer market: "What we do know is that we don't have the parachute payments or the finances that are available to other clubs.

"But we do know that within our structure we can get good players in that can enhance the team and develop us the way we want to."