Manchester City boss Mark Hughes insists he was not prepared to budge from his valuation of Blackburn Rovers striker Roque Santa Cruz.
Hughes made several attempts to be reunited with the Paraguayan striker, who he brought to Ewood Park from Bayern Munich 18 months ago.
However, Rovers rejected all offers for Santa Cruz, with current Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce also wanting a replacement lined up before considering letting the player go.
Former Blackburn chief Hughes again acknowledged his interest in Santa Cruz, but conceded he did not want to pay over the odds.
"Most of our business had been done by the day before, so there were a few phone calls in regard to our players which we had to look at, but any business that we were going to do had already been done," Hughes told the club's official website.
"The situation was that Blackburn were not prepared to sell their player. Their stance was that they did not have anybody to come in, they had apparently been trying to replace him but could not so there was no deal to be done.
"If we had offered more money to a certain level it would have been done, which would have negated their argument to a certain extent, but we were not going to do that. We said all along that we had values for players, and we were not going above them.
"They retained their player, and they were well within their rights to do that. We wanted to bring a good player to Manchester City, our motivation in trying to do the deal was that we thought he could help us. But it has not happened, so we move on."
Hughes did not add to his squad on transfer deadline day, but was happy to bring Wayne Bridge, Shay Given, Nigel de Jong and Craig Bellamy to the club during the window.
He added: "We have still spent a significant amount of money. What we were able to do was address a number of the key areas that we felt needed to be strengthened.
"You always have targets you are hopeful of getting in a transfer window, but you are always realistic about the likelihood of bringing each and every one of them in.
"That's been borne out, but we have probably done better than we thought when the window opened."
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