Sunderland boss Gus Poyet says it's too difficult to buy locally this month.
Poyet is chasing new signings on the continent.
He said: "We had a problem in the summer to buy in England. It's very difficult, I can tell you that, sometimes there are English players and they're on the bench at teams and not playing and they should be playing in another team but because we cannot pay them enough, there's no chance of them coming.
"It's not because there's too many foreigners in England, it is because there are not enough British players playing at the top teams. It works both ways and I can't blame one way or another. I wouldn't blame people if they just bought foreigners, it's the system that's wrong.
"There are teams who want too much money, there are teams who have no limit on what they pay, there are clubs with more money and big squads and it's impossible to get those players. I wanted to play when I was a player but it's down to the player's character, the future they have and what they want.
"We can't put a number on the outgoings but we're trying to move things around a little bit and make a few changes because we have had three different managers with the same group of players and somehow we've not got out of the bottom three and that's something we need to change.
"It's difficult to say why it has not worked for Cabral. For me, he probably has his own opinion but there was a part of him just not working, I don't want to blame myself only, it was probably a combination of things like when he arrived, where he was playing, the players that we had, the way I wanted to play, the players in his position, how they were doing."
