Blues boss Kieran McKenna says he’s excited to have Norwegian international forward Sindre Walle Egeli at the club, the 19-year-old’s Championship record move from Danish side FC Nordsjælland having been completed last night.
Egeli flew to the UK yesterday morning to complete the formalities on his switch to Town, the clubs having agreed a fee of £17.5 million payable over four years and the player a five-year deal.
"We’re excited to have him here,” McKenna said. "He’s a young player who has shown great potential in his early career. I think it’s a real big positive for the club that you’ve got a top, top young talent, who had big interest from top European clubs, who really sees this is as a great place to come and develop in his career.
"That’s a credit to the club and the work that’s been done over the last few years. I think it’s a big credit to the player as well because he’s watched the first four games and he’s seen how tough the Championship is and he’s still really, really keen to come, so I think that shows a fair bit about his personality.
"We’re looking forward to working with him. We think that he can have an impact in the here and how and can help us on the pitch, but he’s not long turned 19, he’s going to need patience, he’s going to need support and he’s going to need encouragement.
"He’s not going to be at his best straight away, there’s going to be an adaption period and a natural growth period in somebody so young.
"We hope he’s a player who can help us pretty quickly on the pitch, but also he’s a player that I think is a really good one for the club to work with over a longer period of time and develop and hopefully help him reach his aspirations and he can help the club reach our aspirations.”
Outlining the roles Egeli can play, he added: "He’s a really versatile forward, who has played as a striker, he’s played as an inside forward, a number 10, and he’s played as a wide player.
"He’s comfortable in all three. He prefers at the moment playing in wide areas but I think he certainly could end up as an inside forward in his career as well.
"A great left foot, can score different types of goals, really good in the penalty box, a good football brain and for 19 has some physical potential but with clear growth still to come physically, so that’s certainly going to be one of the biggest challenges in this division, but that’s also part of the programme we need to put in place with the training, with the gym work, with the matches to build up that physicality.
"But I think there’s a package there of someone who could be a really good player. He needs now the right balance of patience but also encouragement and opportunity that we’ll try and give him.”
While Egeli doesn’t count towards the 25-man squad given his youth, the Blues now have 30 players who do following their late window flurry of signings.
While Conor Townsend, who is out for the season with an ACL injury, won’t be registered, Town are likely to move a number of players on.
McKenna revealed at his press conference that Chieo Ogbene could be among those to depart on loan, while Elkan Baggott, Ali Al-Hamadi, Harry Clarke and Cameron Humphreys are other candidates to go out for spells.
"We need to get the squad size right over the next 48 hours or whatever it might be,” McKenna said.
"Some of those conversations have been had, some situations are ongoing and hopefully by Monday night we’ll have the strength that we need and the right balance in the squad that we need.”