Cardiff manager Neil Warnock has said some players did not want to join the club in last month's transfer window following the disappearance of a plane carrying striker Emiliano Sala.
Sala, 28, and pilot David Ibbotson remain missing after the aircraft vanished from radar on its way from France to Cardiff on Jan. 22.
The Argentina striker had completed a club-record £15 million move to Cardiff two days earlier and had returned to France to say goodbye to his Nantes teammates ahead of his move to the Premier League.
"One or two of the strikers we were talking about didn't really want to come in the circumstances," Warnock said at a news conference ahead of Saturday's home game against Bournemouth.
"They didn't want to come in after what's happened. So it's been a very difficult window."
Earlier this week, seat cushions likely to have come from the plane carrying Sala and Ibbotson were found on a beach in France, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said.
The cushions were discovered Monday on near Surtainville, on the Cotentin Peninsula, by French authorities.
"From a preliminary examination, we have concluded that it is likely that the cushions are from the missing aircraft," the AAIB said in a statement.