CHRIS HUGHTON will spend the weekend reconsidering his transfer targets after learning that Manchester United have decided not to allow attacking midfielder Tom Cleverley to head out on loan.

The Magpies are one of a number of clubs to have been kept informed of Cleverley’s availability, with most expecting him to be moved on if Sir Alex Ferguson had made more successful moves in the transfer market.

However, Ferguson’s step to go public with his decision to keep the 21-year-old in the Red Devils’ squad this season has left Newcastle, Wigan and Bolton looking at alternatives.

Newcastle remain interested in Marseille’s Hatem Ben Arfa, but Hughton is not banking on the winger arriving at St James’ Park before the Premier League opener at Manchester United on August 16.

“At this moment there is nothing on that,” Hughton said. “We do realise it’s being bandied around but there has been no progress.”

Ben Arfa has been made available but Hoffenheim’s willingness to outbid Newcastle for the 23-year-old has made Hughton’s task more difficult.

Arsenal’s Henri Lansbury, who was on loan at Watford with Cleverley last season, is also an option, but Arsene Wenger is also showing a reluctance to release too many of his homegrown talents.

Newcastle head for Glasgow today for their final preseason friendly with Scottish Premier League champions Rangers with just one summer signing, James Perch, in the squad.

Sol Campbell and Dan Gosling are both unavailable and Hughton expects to make progress on his remaining transfer targets in the next seven days.

He accepts that performing well in the Premier League is not a given after cruising to the Championship title last season.

“It’s going to be a totally different challenge this year and we have to adapt. Tactically we’ll have to be different this year,” he said.

“What we were able to do last season was be very strong defensively. We scored a lot of goals but we were strong at the back. If possible, I want us to be even harder to beat this season.

“It will be tougher in this division due to the quality we’ll be up against but that is the challenge we face. We want to be able to go into every game giving ourselves a chance to win.”

Rangers were selected by Hughton just nine days before the season opener at Old Trafford to bring some spice to pre-season.

The manager has been focused on fitness in previous outings, but he is looking for the standards to take a step up at Ibrox.

Hughton said: “The reason I took this game was because I knew it would be a big atmosphere and it would get us ready for that very big game at Old Trafford.”

Newcastle face a frustrating situation next week, when Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez are in Argentina caretaker manager Sergio Batista’s squad to face the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, but at least Hughton benefits from having an extra couple of days to prepare his players as they don’t open the season at Manchester United until a week on Monday.