BBC Sport's list of players to watch for the new season is shaped less by one profile than by three different ones. Sean Steur is a teenager who has already played 25 times for Ajax and could cost Newcastle up to £23m. Caleb Yirenkyi is arriving at Coventry as a club-record £25m signing, while Brian Madjo has four pre-season goals and a competitive debut goal for Aston Villa.
Newcastle's gamble on Sean Steur
Steve Bower said Steur is "not someone who necessarily starts initially, or all the time, but he seems pretty fearless and is the type of player who could grab the opportunity if it comes his way." That fits the move Newcastle have made. Steur joins Newcastle in a deal that could be worth up to £23m, and his 25 Ajax appearances last season suggest he is not being asked to learn everything from scratch.
The fee is the point here. Newcastle are backing a teenager with a figure that could climb quite high, and they are doing it for a player who already has senior minutes in Europe behind him. That is a lot to ask of a young signing, but it is also the sort of bet that tells you the club expects him to be involved quickly.
Coventry's record fee for Caleb Yirenkyi
John Murray called the move a "potentially shrewd signing" for Coventry, even though they have paid about £25m to take Yirenkyi from FC Nordsjaelland. The size of that fee alone makes him one of the most watched players in the BBC piece, because it is a club-record outlay for a newly promoted side.
Murray's line about the transfer fee lands alongside the basic fact that Yirenkyi has already played in all four of Ghana's World Cup matches. He is not coming in as a raw prospect. Conor McNamara also said Frank Lampard could be "just the right coach to help Yirenkyi blossom further, as a midfielder of Premier League standard," which is about as direct a steer as BBC pundits gave any of the names involved.
Brian Madjo is the most eye-catching case of the three because of how quickly the story has moved. He signed for Aston Villa for just over £10m in January, scored four pre-season goals and then added another on his competitive debut against Paris St-Germain.
Steve Bower said Madjo's size has already drawn early comparisons with Erling Haaland, while Guy Mowbray called him "a powerful striker who has most of the tools to be a success." The football logic is obvious enough: if a 17-year-old is scoring in pre-season and on debut, he is going to be part of the conversation. Villa now have a teenager who has already shown up in front of goal before the league season has even begun.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
