What Sean Steur move says about Newcastle's transfer business this summer

Newcastle United appear to be closing in on the signing of highly-rated Dutch midfielder Sean Steur from Ajax.

Just before the USA got what was coming to them in the World Cup, news broke online that Newcastle United were set to seal a £23m move for Ajax midfielder Stean Steur.

The 18-year-old had just broken through from the famed Ajax academy into the first team, where he made 25 senior appearances last season, even registering a goal and two assists along the way.

Steur is more of a defensive midfielder, but he's not opposed to getting forward and has been known to unleash some fierce efforts into the back of the net.

This could ultimately prove to be a masterstroke by Newcastle. Not just because of the high ceiling Steur possesses, but more because of how the deal came about.

Steur surprise suggests Newcastle are learning 

Sean Steur's name hadn't even been mentioned before the news broke that the deal was practically done.

Newcastle had managed to operate in the shadows to get signings done in the past. Sandro Tonali and Harvey Barnes came out of nowhere after we'd been linked with other players in their respective teams at the time, but this time, there wasn't even a sniff of anything going on.

No ITKs, no Fabrizio Romano, not even David Ornstein had got wind of this one. This was a Ross Wilson power play and exactly how deals should be done, ideally. 

Can we keep up these transfer sneak attacks?

It goes to show how you should still question every link. Even when it's being widely reported. How long were we linked with James Maddison before it turned out we were actually watching Harvey Barnes?

We were worried that under Wilson and David Hopkinson, we'd maybe lose this element of surprise that served us well before, but it seems that not only are we still capable of it, we're even better at it.

It now remains to be seen how many more transfer surprises we can spring before the summer is over.