A Sean Steur Carabao Cup start looks likely tonight as Newcastle United travel to The Den to face Millwall in the third round, with Matthias Jaissle expected to rotate his squad for the trip to South London.
The 18-year-old has been in and out of the starting XI in the early weeks of the season, but impressed off the bench in Saturday’s draw with Bournemouth and is in line to come back into the team this evening.
From Purmerend to Tyneside: Steur’s rapid rise
Steur, who was born in Purmerend, Netherlands on 11 January 2008, according to Wikipedia, has been on an accelerated football education since childhood. He joined Ajax’s youth academy at the age of seven, according to the Newcastle United official site, and spent well over a decade developing within one of Europe’s most demanding systems before making his move to St James’ Park.
That grounding showed last season. Steur made 22 appearances for Ajax in 2025/26, as reported by Yahoo Sports, accumulating genuine senior experience at a high level before Newcastle paid £23 million to bring him to Tyneside in the summer. He started the club’s first two games of the campaign and was prominent throughout pre-season, quickly establishing himself as one of the more exciting arrivals at the club.
His place in the starting XI became harder to hold following the arrival of Nico Gonzalez. The Spaniard and Lewis Miley have formed Newcastle’s preferred midfield pairing in the wins and draws that have followed, with Steur perhaps unfortunate to find himself rotated out given his form.
Botman on a fellow Ajax graduate: ‘Unbelievable for his age’
Steur has settled quickly off the pitch too, and a key part of that has been his bond with Sven Botman. The pair share an Ajax academy background, and Botman has spoken openly about just how impressed he has been.
‘He came from the Ajax academy as well so we definitely speak about Ajax a lot as it is a club we both grew up in,’ Botman said in Newcastle’s official matchday programme. ‘We both had some good times there. He’s just a bit younger than me but it is the same pathway. It is nice to have another Ajax academy player.’
The praise did not stop there. ‘He is a good player. Especially for his age, he is unbelievable. Sometimes I tell him, when I was 18 I was just playing in the second team for Ajax. Everybody has their own time and it is going really quickly for him. He is doing really well, really good. I did not know him before he signed. Since he came, he is a really good guy and good player.’
For a teenager arriving in a new country, new league and a new dressing room, having a compatriot who has already navigated that exact transition is a clear advantage. Botman’s own path through the Ajax academy and into top-level European football gives Steur a practical blueprint right there in the same squad.
Botman steps into a leadership role
Botman’s words on Steur sit within a broader shift in the dressing room dynamic. Dan Burn has cited him as a new leader in the group this season, and with several key players having left the club over the summer, there were concerns about a leadership vacuum forming.
Botman addressed that directly. ‘I am still quite young I think,’ he said. ‘But in this group I am definitely one of the more experienced ones. It is just a natural way of me trying to help other team-mates and the new players, getting the standards high.’
‘We have more leaders in the group, everyone is really vocal and it is good. We don’t have a quiet group here and everyone helps each other. We are all on the same page. On the outside people think it is only certain players who can be leaders. But I have always been vocal and I can never play a football match without speaking.’
He added: ‘Although we are young players, everyone is really mature.’
Tonight’s Carabao Cup third-round tie at The Den gives Jaissle a chance to hand Steur the minutes he needs to push back into the league reckoning. A Sean Steur Carabao Cup start would be his first since the opening two league fixtures, and on the evidence of his pre-season form and his cameo against Bournemouth, he will be keen to take it.