James McPake tried in vain to sign Euan Murray for the THIRD time in his management career.
The Dunfermline manager was looking to bolster his defence ahead of Tuesday’s transfer deadline.
Hartlepool defender Murray was “desperate” to come to the club that he spent two years at between 2019 and 2021, according to McPake.
The Pars boss was also keen but his club dragged their feet and the deal fell through.
Murray was a transfer target for McPake twice before and, while nothing can be completed in the current loan window, the pursuit may not be completely over.
“He is a good player, he had a good spell here before,” said McPake.
Fourth time lucky?
“I had tried to take him to Dundee twice as well. It was disappointing but – maybe fourth time lucky, who knows!
“You’re always in a fight – either with other clubs or the parent club.”
McPake isn’t a fan of everything boiling down to transfer deadline day.
He prefers to get business done early but said it is not always in the hands of the interested club.
“The offer went in [to Hartlepool] and we thought it would be accepted,” he added.
“It seemed they were trying to get somebody in, and they got somebody late on.
“I don’t know if that was the one they needed.”
The need for a defender came out of the blue when Sam Fisher was recalled days before the break clause in his loan was due to end.
McPake addresses fans
Some Pars supporters were frustrated not to see a replacement, or any other reinforcements, brought in before Tuesday’s deadline.
“We’ve got the full of February to work as well, and we’ll continue to do that,” said McPake.
“Does it guarantee we’ll get ones over the door? No.
“On the flipside, we could have brought three or four in that we could have then said: ‘We’ve brought bodies in.’
“How much would it have strengthened the positions in the squad, I’m not too sure.
Listen in full to the manager’s answer on fan disappointment (image: Craig Brown):
“I feel their frustrations, everybody at the club is frustrated as well because when you’ve got targets you want to do,” he added.
“When you lose a player of Sam’s quality you want to get him back or you want to get another one in, but it’s just not as easy as that. It’s hard to go out and find someone to replace Sam Fisher.
“[The fans will] be as frustrated with me when I say this but we weren’t just going to sign someone for the sake of singing someone – but we may as well be honest about it.
“We did try and obviously Euan would have been a good one, we know that.
“In fact, the player wanted to come, we were desperate to do it and it looked like it was going to happen.
“That one obviously can’t happen now but there are certainly other ones ongoing.”
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