Alan Knill today looked back on one of Scunthorpe United's busiest transfer windows and admitted – it's been tough.

Since the end of 2011, the Iron dressing room has become something of a revolving door, with eight players moving out and seven coming in.

Two of his best pieces of recruitment came in the final few hours before Tuesday's 11pm deadline – with the return of defender David Mirfin from Watford and the capture of experienced striker Jon Parkin.

Both players were on loan, like the majority of the Iron's new faces.

Indeed, only striker Connor Jennings has commanded a transfer fee.

But Knill says that is a sign of the times, with only nine League One clubs, his own included, paying transfer fees.

"It's tough for everybody," said the Iron manager.

"I read a stat that last year, so many millions had been spent whereas this year it's a lot less. There's no money out there.

"It's been quite difficult, but speaking to everybody else, they say the same.

"Unless you've got cash like Bournemouth, who've gone out and got Matt Tubbs (from Crawley, for a reported £800,000), you can't go and do that. You have to be really patient."

Knill's wheeling and dealing has also had to be done under tight financial constraints, with the Iron's board keen to reduce the playing budget in light of relegation from the Championship at the end of last season.

They did that by allowing Chris Dagnall to move to Barnsley and reached a settlement with Michael Nelson which allowed the defender to move to Kilmarnock.

It was a sufficient enough process to resist the temptation to allow Michael O'Connor to move to Hibernian, following a bid – described as 'not particularly good' by Knill – on Monday.

But, he warned, more needs to be done to bring down costs.

"There's no flexibility. Whenever we want a player, we've struggled because we're full up and that's having reduced the wages quite a bit recently," said the Iron manager.

"We're still higher than where the club wants to be, which has made it difficult, but we're trying to arrest that.

"Those players we think are development players, like Jamie Reckord, for both us and them, they help."