Newcastle United may have signed eight new first-team players in the 2026 summer transfer window, but planning for next summer's market is already under way. One of the immediate priorities will be in the centre of defence, where the club will look towards a succession plan for two of their ageing stars.
Fabian Schar and Dan Burn are both 34 and will be 35 by the time the season ends. Burn has just been named the club's captain, and there is an option to extend his stay by a further year on the end of his current contract, which expires next summer. Schar is also in the final year of his contract, having signed a one-year extension in the summer, and there is a feeling the former Switzerland international's ninth season on Tyneside could well be his last.
Monitoring Ajax's Aaron Bouwman
Burn has missed all seven of Newcastle's games this season, but Schar has been fit and has had to largely play second fiddle to the partnership of Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman at the heart of United's backline. He has been restricted to just one start in the Carabao Cup win over Millwall and two substitute appearances in the Premier League, and with that in mind, the succession planning for his replacement is already under way.
It will be big shoes to fill given all Schar has achieved since joining the club from Deportivo La Coruna in the summer of 2018, and the £3million they paid to bring him from Spain has arguably made him the best pound-for-pound signing in the club's modern history. But that does not mean Newcastle will deviate from their new transfer direction of signing young players with high potential, and why Chronicle Live's report this morning that they are monitoring Ajax teenager Aaron Bouwman should not come as a surprise.
The 19-year-old is a Dutch youth international who had already featured 10 times this season across the Eredivisie and UEFA Conference League qualifiers, and has become a mainstay in the Ajax side. He has since been ruled out with a bruised lung after being on the wrong end of a horror challenge by Ruben van Bommel in a defeat to PSV, but he has made a big impression early in the season.
Profile of a ball-playing defender
Newcastle are no strangers to signing young stars from Ajax, with 18-year-old midfielder Sean Steur already proving a major success on Tyneside since making his move from the Dutch capital. While they are just keeping tabs on Bouwman's progress at this stage, the interest is indicative of the type of profile of defender they will be targeting to succeed Schar.
When looking at Bouwman's profile compared to other defenders across Europe's top seven leagues, the 19-year-old ranks in the 98th percentile for forward passing and in the 97th percentile for pass completion rate, progressive passes and progressive carries. That clearly suggests he is a very competent, ball-playing defender, and that feels like the ideal profile for the way Matthias Jaissle's side build up their attacks from the back.
If you run Bouwman through DataMB's player similarity generator, Manchester City's Josko Gvardiol and PSG's Ilya Zabarnyi come up among the five players with the most similar profile to the Dutch youngster. Even if nothing materialises from United monitoring the Ajax star, it is clear the qualities Newcastle want in any centre-half they will look to sign next summer.
