Stoke City boss Mark Hughes admits he held face-to-face talks with Inter Milan midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri.
Stoke wanted an indication from Shaqiri that the move appealed before they left England last week to take part in the Barclays Asia Trophy in Singapore. When it was not forthcoming, they dropped interest.
"We had conversations and I went out to meet the boy," said Hughes. "We made a bid for a significant amount of money to Inter Milan but he needed to feel his future lay with us.
"We needed to give him a time-scale. We did need to be patient but we had other things we wanted to move on and we didn't sense the enthusiasm from him and his people. If I'm honest, it is one that has gone away from us."