Strachan did try to spend all of the Johnson cash, but Blackpool turned down a s3m bid for Charlie Adam, while a move to sign Shunsuke Nakamura from Espanyol also failed.
But Gordon Strachan conceded today that it would be an impossible task to try to replace Adam Johnson.
Strachan: "We hoped to be able to keep Adam but in the end it wouldnt have been right to deny him the opportunity.
"We know how important he was to us in terms of his goals and assists.
"Thats why we couldnt have replaced Adam, however hard we tried.
"We tried to get one or two more in before the deadline, to help with the numbers, but in the end we did well to get in the ones that we did."