Locked away on closely guarded laptops are scouting reports, video packages and character references of Newcastle United's top targets. Those hours of painstaking analysis did not pay off in January. Could that change in the summer? "I'd like to think so," boss Eddie Howe said.

This was another window dominated by three familiar letters - PSR - but a rival Premier League executive has predicted that the close season will be busier across the board. Not as a result of a higher net spend, but because there will be 'a lot of people trading players to create headroom'.

"I expected January to be quiet," he told ChronicleLive. "PSR has had an impact on clubs, including Newcastle, clearly. Also, clubs, in general, are getting a little bit wiser to overspending in January and are waiting until the summer.

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"There has been a shift in targeting younger players over the last few years and a trend towards not chucking loads of money at January because that's not the smartest move. I think there will be a lot of action this summer personally."

There were already one or two signs of trading's renewed importance in January. Aston Villa may have signed Donyell Malen on a permanent deal and Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio on loan, but the Villains also raised around £92m through player sales to help fund a mid-season recruitment drive. Even Newcastle, who are not traditionally good sellers, have managed to bring in noteworthy fees for Miguel Almiron and Lloyd Kelly, who has joined Juventus on a loan-to-buy deal, just a few months after sporting director Paul Mitchell highlighted the need to 'balance out the aggregate'.

Newcastle 'needed' to sell Almiron to Atlanta United in a window where the Magpies had three broad priorities: to comply with PSR; to keep hold of the club's star players, who have been described as 'gold dust' behind the scenes; and to not destabilise a tight-knit dressing room.

The prospect of strengthening the squad, though, was consistently played down. In fact, as far back as November, Howe suggested it would be a 'complex' window for Newcastle. By mid-December, the Newcastle boss did not expect to be in a position to be 'too active'. A few days later, Howe stressed the black-and-whites had to be 'responsible' to make sure any decisions did not have a knock-on effect on future spending after the club narrowly escaped a PSR breach back in June.

In truth, the die was cast before the window even opened on New Year's Day. 'Barring something huge happening', Newcastle did not expect to recruit. So it proved in a window where Liverpool, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea were among those sides who also did not do any business.

January has always been a challenging window to find value in - there is a reason why former owner Amanda Staveley once said the mid-season trading period was 'not one we would ordinarily want to invest in' before doing just that - but the landscape has changed considerably even since then. PSR had an obvious effect, but the expanded Champions League and Europa League formats have had an understated influence, too, as a number of clubs have been reluctant to let players go while their fate was still being decided right up until the final week of the window.

Newcastle have previously had the capacity to be reactive to an injury or to strengthen from a position of strength like when Howe's side signed Anthony Gordon two seasons ago. However, the message that kept coming back this time around was this was very much a case of what Newcastle could do rather than what the black-and-whites wanted to do.

Take Juma Bah, for instance. ChronicleLive understands members of Newcastle's recruitment team 'loved' the defender, but the Magpies established that a move was not feasible several weeks before the window even opened. Bah ended up joining champions Manchester City after paying £5.1m to activate his own release clause at Real Valladolid.

Bah was among those players Newcastle identified. Not only so Newcastle were not starting from zero, if something dramatically changed with the club's PSR situation, but, also, with the summer in mind as the black-and-whites would otherwise lose track of the market.

ChronicleLive understands the club have even enlisted the services of a South Coast-based creative agency used by both Liverpool and Bournemouth to produce bespoke videos that introduce targets to their prospective new club, city and fans, and to outline how they would fit in.

While Newcastle missed out on Bah, Abdukodir Khusanov and others, the hope behind the scenes is that these packages and the club's 'valuable knowledge' can be used for other targets who ended up staying put as the black-and-whites continue to monitor their development in the final months of the season. It is still a little early to gauge what kind of summer this could be for Newcastle - the Magpies look set to be in the market for a quality centre-back and right winger at the very least - but football finance expert Kieran Maguire suggested 'a lot will depend' on the club's final league position.

"Qualification for the Champions League would certainly release substantial resources, especially with UEFA now moving to a calendar year as a period of assessment," he told ChronicleLive. "Liverpool have already made €100m just from the league phase. It is transformational and Newcastle will want to keep their powder dry until they have certainty one way or the other.

"It looks like there is an 80%-90% chance of the Premier League having five Champions League places next season so the top five is very feasible. If that is the case, expect to see some flexibility or, alternatively to that, Alexander Isak signs a new contract, which is the equivalent of signing a £100m player."

If Newcastle are to return to Europe's top table, though, Howe's team are going to have to do so without any new additions. That is no easy task.