Wolves director Jeff Shi insists budget wasn't too blame for their lacklustre transfer window.

Despite signing Jose Sa, Yerson Mosquera, Francisco Trincao and Hwang Hee-Chan,m anager Bruno Lage told reporters he wanted three or more 'top players' to join his squad.

The Molineux outift were linked with Lille midfielder Renato Sanches and Marseille stopper Duje Daleta-Car, but Shi has said the club did not believe they had found upgrades on their current players.

"[Bruno] said he wanted three or four top players, and he's right." Shi said, speaking with The Athletic.

"From a coach's view, if he has those three or four top players, something special can happen. He's spot on, I totally agree with that and I appreciate the ambition. But the market has been very difficult to acquire top players.

"Ask any club in the Premier League can they sign three or four top players in a window. Only a few can, especially this summer.

"We could have spent money on a player, the budget wasn't an issue, albeit we can't spend like Manchester City or Chelsea. We could easily have bought four or five players, but Bruno had the say on who he did or didn't want.

"It's not all about the budget, it's about finding top players to come here, which isn't easy. You need the player to be top quality, to want to move, the club [he'd be leaving] to want to sell and the fee to be more or less fair.

"Through the whole window, we were working collaboratively with Bruno every single day, trying 20 or 30 targets overall, but the coach was unsure about two-thirds of them, he didn't think they were better than [what was already in] our squad.

"For example, we wanted a top centre-back, but if we couldn't find a deal for one better than Willy Boly, Yerson Mosquera, Conor Coady, Max Kilman or Romain Saiss, why sign them? The truth is, it's hard to buy one 'top' player, convincing a player to come, convincing a club to let the player come."