This signing is a symptom of a bigger problem that has been going on at the club for years - short-termism.
Ultimately, any football club can only be as successful as its recruitment.
Continually signing older players without re-sale value or potential to develop (see Lambert, Fletcher, Barry, etc, and the re-signing of Brunt and Morrison) means in the long-term we lose out. We end up paying over-the-odds for overrated British players who are past their best. This then leads to having to find cheap, desperate, last-minute fixes - such as this. It's not a sustainable way to run a football club.
A successful transfer policy (which we had with Ashworth in the past) involves extensive European (and World) scouting, with the recruitment of young, hungry players on lower salaries with the potential to improve (and in the future, re-sell for a profit). This generally leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of improvement in the club's funds and on the football pitch.
We need to hire a director of football, expand our scouting network which we allowed Pulis to wreck, and get back to this recruitment policy as soon as possible if we ever want to become an established Premier League side again.