Newcastle’s Amanda Staveley lifts lid on January transfer talks with Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard

Newcastle chief Amanda Staveley has confirmed Jesse Lingard wanted to sign for the North East club in January.

Lingard, 29, has made just three starts at United this season despite making a stellar impression on loan at West Ham last term.

The academy graduate is now in the final year of his contract at the club and he's set to leave on a free transfer in the summer, but unhappy with his role under Ralf Rangnick, Lingard asked the German to leave United on loan in January for regular minutes.

It was the last opportunity for United to receive a fee [Newcastle's loan fee] for Lingard yet the move was blocked.

Staveley has now reflected on her side's January transfer business and she has confirmed Lingard wanted to join Newcastle.

“We [Newcastle] were 19th going into the window," Staveley told The Athletic.

"So we had that, an illiquid market and the complexity of COVID, which meant clubs didn’t want to sell because they didn’t know where their squads would end up. We had to encourage players.

"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.”