Selling Santa Cruz was not an option

Last updated : 02 February 2009 By Andy
The Paraguay international was in the sights of Manchester City and has been for a long time, Tottenham were also monitoring the situation. City were expected to make a final bid for the player today having had an £18.5m offer turned down last week.

But Allardyce said an improved offer would not have made any difference.

"More often than not the player probably gets his own way but in the position we were in it was impossible to agree to that, so we stood firm," he said.

"The most important thing was keeping a squad together that's a very good and tight-knit squad. I wanted to keep that unity and myself and John Williams worked so hard in this window to make sure we resisted any bids from anybody.

" We're really pleased that we've managed to do that to help us secure, as quickly as possible, our Premier League status for another season."