Blues boss Kieran McKenna says there needs to be a degree of patience with recent signing Sindre Walle Egeli but that the 19-year-old won’t be held back if he quickly goes beyond the early expectations.
Walle Egeli joined Town for a new Championship record fee of £17.5 million towards the end of the transfer window from Danish side Nordsjælland but has spent most of the intervening time away with Norway’s U21s, scoring once and assisting twice in the 5-0 hammering of Slovenia in a European Championship qualifier, having also started a 1-0 friendly victory over Denmark.
McKenna was asked whether the forward is ready to hit the ground running following his switch.
"I think, as you do with young players, and I think we’ve done it really well at the club, you need to go into it knowing that there’s a degree of patience which is going to be needed,” he said.
"He’s a young player just turned 19, never played in England before, the intensity, the physicality of the league is a big, big step up from the league that he’s been playing in, so you expect that there will be an adjustment period.
"But also you don’t put a cap on a young player with a really high potential, and we didn’t do that with Liam [Delap] last year. The expectations were maybe at one point, but if the player comes in and goes beyond that quicker than anticipated, then you’re not going to hold the player back, you want the talent to flourish.
"He’s a really young player. Of course, there’s a big transfer fee behind it but that has no bearing on any of my thought processes. I think that’s the market where we are now as a club.
"You can look at other top young players you can get on loan. We took Omari Hutchinson on loan and there was zero transfer fee. There shouldn’t be a different expectation on Sindre because of that.
"Middlesbrough have taken the other really good Norwegian U21 international [Sverre Nypan] on loan from Man City, it doesn’t mean that the expectations should be any higher or any lower.
"He’s an exceptional young talent, we’ve really enjoyed having him in the building in the last 24 hours, a really confident but humble young man. We’re really looking forward to working with him.
"He’ll get opportunities here to play and develop and he’ll also get patience and support. I know that will be the case within the training ground and I’m sure it will be with the supporters as well, and I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing him play, but we’ll support him right through his time at the club.”
Walle Egeli was linked with plenty of bigger clubs, PSV, Liverpool, Newcastle, Club Brugge and Porto reportedly among them, having apparently shown interest.
"He’s got very high potential, no two ways about that,” McKenna said when asked how far his new signing might go. "He’s got very high potential, his technical qualities and his football intelligence, he’s got some good physical qualities already.
"He’s got high qualities but potential’s potential. It’s how you convert that, how you adjust to your surroundings and league that you’re playing in, the team that you’re playing in and how he grows and develops. You can’t ever tell with a player of that age how their career will go.
"Of course, you need lots of luck and lots of things to go your way as well, but he’s got some really good ingredients.
"I think to have him at the club over the long term, to have him here to build with us over the next few seasons is a really good place to be for the club and I’m delighted that the player and his family and people felt that this was a really good place for him. I think that’s a great sign as well, so we’re happy to have him here.”