Newcastle land Aston Villa’s Targett but moves for Lingard and Ekitike fail

Newcastle took their January transfer spend to almost £90m yet still ended up harbouring a sense of frustration after failing in attempts to bring Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard and the Reims striker Hugo Ekitike to St James’ Park.

Although Eddie Howe was delighted to begin transfer deadline day having completed the £35m acquisition of the Brazil defensive midfielder Bruno Guimarães from Lyon in addition to recruiting the New Zealand striker Chris Wood and the England right-back Kieran Trippier from Burnley and Atletico Madrid for £25m and £12m respectively, Newcastle’s manager had sought increased creativity.

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Despite agreeing a £20m-plus deal with Reims for Ekitike, a 19-year-old forward dubbed the “new Kylian Mbappé”, the player declined to board the plane Newcastle had laid on to transport him to Tyneside, expressing a reluctance to leave France at this juncture in his career. It is thought Ekitike was concerned that Howe’s team remain in the bottom three and wondered whether he really wanted to become embroiled in a relegation struggle.

Howe had more success with Matt Targett. The 26-year-old left back arrived on loan from Aston Villa until the end of the season after his first-team future was cast into doubt by Lucas Digne’s switch from Everton to Villa Park.

Targett, previously with Southampton, has long been admired by Howe and, providing things progress as planned, is expected to complete a permanent move to Newcastle in the summer.

Dan Burn was also at Newcastle’s training ground to seal his £13m move from Brighton on a two-and-a-half-year contract. The 6ft 7in, Northumberland-born centre-half was thrilled at being given a