Seattle Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer has revealed that the club could basically not afford to sign both Eidur Gujohnsen and George Ogararu.
The former Chelsea and Barcelona striker and ex-Ajax defender were both being heavily linked with a move to Seattle prior to the transfer deadline closing on Friday but Hanauer says that there were some financial difficulties in bringing them in along with newly-signed goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann.
"Obviously we had George here, we had Eidur here. Marcus came in at the end there," said Hanauer.
"You always wish you can do more - we want to be the strongest team possible - but in the end it's a salary-cap league.
"There was really only one move we could make at the end. We're happy to have gotten Marcus - adds, again, more strength, more depth to an already strong roster.
"We'll certainly keep in contact with both George and Eidur and you never know what happens in the future."
He added: "We were trying to manipulate things a little bit, where it didn't necessarily have to be an either-or. In the end, it did. It was sort of a situation where we were able to make one signing.
"There's obviously not much time left in the season and ultimately those were sort of the two issues that we ran into with both George and Eidur is we had very little money and very little time and very little flexibility."
