Tommy Wright was left frustrated in his pursuit of David Goodwillie when the striker agreed a one-year contract with SPFL Premiership rivals Aberdeen.
The St Johnstone manager had a verbal agreement with Goodwillie that he would continue to train with the Perth side this week but a firm contract offer caused him to instead travel to Pittodrie, where he signed a deal yesterday.
Wright had been informed of the offer by Goodwillie's agent and was invited to make an offer too. However, the Northern Irishman has acknowledged that his club is not yet in a position to sign new players and so he was unable to tempt Goodwillie to remain among his squad. Wright does not expect to add to his team before they take on Swiss side Luzern in a Europa League qualifier next week.
"I'm disappointed because I spoke to David on Friday and at that stage he was coming back in this week," said Wright, who has offered training facilities to 22-year-old striker Tomas Tisas, of Greek side Niki Volous. "The Aberdeen thing happened over the weekend. I got a call from his agent while I was in Switzerland asking if we could make an offer. But we couldn't. We are not in a position to make any offers at the minute to any player.
"I still think we could have got Goodwillie. We were asked to make a reasonable offer and we could have got him but we couldn't make any offer. At the moment we can't add to the squad. That might disappoint fans but that is the reality.
"Just because we won the [Scottish Cup] I'm not all of a sudden going to see a massive change in my budget. I am comfortable with that but I have told the chairman I will keep banging on his door and he will keep trying hard to find me money for a player or two."
Wright is at least in talks to extend his own contract and remains confident that an agreement will be reached. "I want to stay. The chairman I believe wants me to stay so I don't think there's going to be a problem. It hasn't happened yet but there hasn't been any fall out. It just requires a bit of toing and froing."
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