The club's co-owner, Amanda Stavli, told The Athletic that they tried hard to land her as well as Lillee defender Sven Boutman, who was keen to join the Toon army.
Following the acquisition of the club by PCP Capital Partners, funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, signings were always expected when the window opened.
Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimaraes, Matt Targett and Dan Byrne were all brought in during this period for a total of £80million.
Although, as Stavley noted, the additional number could have increased to seven, there were deals in place for Lingard, who was forced to stay at Manchester United, and Boutman went through.
However, crucially, she revealed that the latter still remains on the cards as she looks to join the club in the summer.
“We were going into the 19th window. So we had that, an uneducated 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,” Staveley said how difficult it was to sign players in January.
"We had to encourage the players - 'we will be a safe place for you, we will deliver and grow'.
"Some people wanted to come to us, like Sven [Botman], who still does a lot and talks very openly about it.
"Coming through is all that shows us that we can do it, that we can stick to our plan and that if we're criticized on the last day, 'Oh, you go after Jesse [Lingard]'." Well, Jesse wanted to come to us.
"We did everything. We never stopped. We never stopped working from start to finish."