Newcastle United chief Amanda Staveley has revealed that Sven Botman and Jesse Lingard were both eager to join the club in the January transfer window.
The Magpies are under new ownership and have become competitive in the transfer market as a result, bringing in big names like Kieran Trippier and Bruno Guimaraes this winter.
However, Staveley has now told The Athletic that other established stars were also keen on the chance to move to St James’ Park.
“We were 19th going into the window. So we had that, an illiquid market, and the complexity of COVID-19, which meant clubs didn’t want to sell because they didn’t know where their squads would end up,” she said.
“We had to encourage players – ‘we’ll be a safe place for you, we’ll deliver and grow’. Some desperately wanted to come to us, like Sven (Botman), who still does very much and has talked very openly about that.
“Coming through all that showed us we can do it, that we can stick to our plan and if we get criticised on the last day for ‘oh, you’re going after Jesse (Lingard)’, well, Jesse wanted to come to us.
“We did everything. We never stopped. From the start to the finish, we did not stop working.”
One imagines Newcastle will come back in for these players in the summer, as well as other big names in the game.