Eddie Howe has admitted that Newcastle United are seeing 'targets' move to other clubs after Abdukodir Khusanov joined Manchester City.

Howe, wary of staleness setting in, has always set out to bring in at least one signing each window to lift the group and increase competition for places and Khusanov was a player Newcastle certainly liked. In fact, Khusanov's agent, Gairat Khasbiullin, confirmed Newcastle were 'very close to a deal' but 'Financial Fair Play played a role'.

Supporters may naturally question why Newcastle remain constrained after the black-and-whites ended last summer in profit and even made huge bids for Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi. However, if Newcastle had signed Guehi, the Magpies would have potentially had to sanction a number of departures before the end of the current financial year and the club do not want to find themselves in the position they were in back in June when they had to scramble to raise funds to avoid a PSR breach.

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Howe has repeatedly stressed there is 'not a pot of money there waiting to be spent', which means the huge amount of groundwork the club's recruitment team have put in might not bear immediate fruit this month.

"We have done the work," Howe told reporters after being asked directly about Khusanov. "We have identified players that we would like to sign. We have spoken to the representatives because you have to do the process right.

"If something happens and we are able to recruit, you can't then start from zero. We are seeing players that we identified, liked and targeted move to other clubs, but that's always part of the game."

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has hailed Khusanov's 'extraordinary physicality' after the centre-back completed a move worth £33.6m plus add-ons from Lens earlier this week.