Peterborough United's Barry Fry makes Sunderland deadline-day transfer claim

Posh had allowed Siriki Dembele to join Bournemouth, meaning that they were loathed to let any further players leave Darren Ferguson's squad.

Beevers, 32, has made 13 appearances this season and has won three promotions from League One.

"Oxford manager Karl Robinson rang me, the manager and the chairman about [Sammie Szmodics], while Sunderland started making silly bids for Beevers on deadline day with a couple of hours of the window left, Fry told the Peterborough Telegraph.

"They then made a reasonable offer 15 minutes before the window closed, but by then we had promised the manager no more players would leave and we stood firm.

“The players were disappointed, but I’ve seen them since and they will give their all for us.”

Sporting Director Kristjaan Speakman told the SAFC Unfiltered podcast on Thursday that moves for a number of centre backs had fallen short in the final days of the window, as they searched for a replacement for Shrewsbury-bound Tom Flanagan.

“If you said to me what would you have done, what could you have done, I think naturally we would have liked to acquire another centre-back," Speakman said.

“We tried really, really hard to do that both in terms of significant bids on permanent players and loan players.

“You also have to draw a line of how far are you going to go before you are doing something that is negatively going to impact what we are trying to do.

“I think from that perspective we were really comfortable with where we got to.

“You can bring players in and they can be successful, you can choose not to bring players in because you don’t think they are going to fit.

“Myself and the recruitment department tried really, really hard to try to identify and find another one but it wasn’t to be.

“That player didn't exist in the end with the scope of what we wanted that player to be.”

Speakman added that the club would look to the free agent market for a possible addition in the coming days.

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