There have been numerous incomings at Championship clubs this transfer window, but which newcomers should be the ones to keep a close eye on? We look at six players who will make their Championship bow in 2025-26 and who we believe will be exciting to watch.
Nestory Irankunda (Watford)
There were extremely high hopes for Nestory Irankunda after he joined Bayern Munich from Adelaide United in November 2023 for a fee that had the potential to break the A-League record after add-ons.
Still only a teenager, Irankunda was said to have impressed Vincent Kompany last season, making the substitutes bench in a handful of first-team games before spending the second half of the campaign at Swiss top-flight side Grasshoppers.
Although his tally of one goal and three assists across 19 Swiss Super League appearances was modest, he attempted more shots (29) than any other teammate from his debut in January onwards, while only four players at Grasshoppers created more chances from open play than his 11.
His main threat comes from carrying the ball, though. After his debut on 18 January, no player in the Grasshoppers’ side had more shots (12) or created more chances (6) following ball carries than Irankunda – both metrics in which he excelled in the A-League before attracting Bayern.
In his last season of Australian league football, Irankunda – who was still only 17 years of age for the majority of 2023-24 – averaged the most progressive carries per 90 (12.7) and carry progress (185m per carry), while he ranked inside the top two players for carries ending with either a shot or chance created per 90 (3).
With Watford keeping hold of two of the Championship’s most exciting ball carriers in Giorgi Chakvetadze and Kwadwo Baah, the Hornets could be one of the most entertaining teams in the division in 2025-26.
Azor Matusiwa (Ipswich Town)
Ipswich Town’s signing of Azor Matusiwa this summer might have gone under the radar of many Championship followers, but it could be one of the best bits of business by any club in the window.
The 27-year-old played a key role in Rennes’ Ligue 1 campaign last season, with only four players at the club starting more league matches (23) or playing more league minutes (2,078) than he did.
Strong and aggressive in central midfield, Matusiwa topped the team rankings in 2024-25 for Rennes for interceptions (34), tackles (64) and possession won in the middle third of the pitch (73). The Dutchman also played a key role in recovering the ball and beginning shot-ending sequences of play for Rennes last season, topping the team rankings with 26.
He was also adept in possession, ranking third for his team in Ligue 1 last season for open-play passes (1,081), while his pass success rate of 87% was better than many of the league’s most prolific passers from midfield.
Kieran McKenna will be hoping that his Ipswich side can bounce back to the Premier League at the first attempt following their relegation last season, and Matusiwa looks likely to play a key role in that attempt.
Mathias Kvistgaarden (Norwich City)
Norwich City had two of the four top scorers in the Championship last season in Borja Sainz (18 goals) and Josh Sargent (15), but with Sainz having been sold to FC Porto and Sargent linked to other clubs in this transfer window, another goalscoring option was much needed for the Canaries in 2025-26.
Step forward Mathias Kvistgaarden. The 23-year-old enjoyed an excellent campaign in the Danish Superliga last season at Brøndby, scoring 17 goals in 29 league appearances and finishing behind only Patrick Mortensen (20) in the Danish top-flight goal charts.
Kvistgaarden is one of a few new Scandinavian forwards to join Championship clubs this season, with the region now producing a strong number of decent quality number 9s. Linked to various clubs this summer, it was Norwich who won the race for his signature and paid a fee reported to be in the region of £6.5m to secure his services.
Clinical in front of goal, Kvistgaarden converted 21.5% of his non-penalty shots last season in Denmark and averaged an xG per shot of 0.18 from those attempts on goal, both among the best in the competition in 2024-25 and similar to Sargent’s Championship numbers last season (0.19 xG per non-pen shot and 22.6% shot conversion).
The Dane isn’t one to get heavily involved in build-up play, so expect him to spend a lot of his time in the opposition penalty area. Of his 116 involvements in open-play sequences that ended in a shot in the Danish league last season, 63% saw his only role in the move come as the player that attempted the shot.
Overall, he only created 18 chances for teammates in open play last term across 2,023 minutes of action – one every 112 minutes.
Zeidane Inoussa (Swansea City)
Being one of the most chaotic football leagues in Europe, the Championship often lends itself to players who can make an impact in counter attacks and in moments of transition. Winger Zeidane Inoussa could be one of those players and has the potential to be a very shrewd transfer for Swansea City ahead of 2025-26.
Inoussa performed well for mid-table side Häcken in the 2024 Swedish Allsvenskan, with six goals and three assists in 22 appearances, but he played just 61.2% of possible minutes in league competition last season.
Swansea are signing a player that proved to be one of the best players in the Swedish top flight when running with the ball last season. The 23-year-old averaged 5.8 take-ons per 90, ranking him second in the Allsvenskan, while he featured in the top 10 players for opposition half take-ons per 90 (4.2), total carry progress per 90 (124.5m) and average shot involvements following a carry per 90 (1.8).
Using the Opta Player Similarity tool, Inoussa was deemed most similar to Manchester United’s Amad Diallo (86% likeness) among attacking players in the top five European leagues in 2024-25. Swansea fans won’t mind that, surely.
Aune Heggebø (West Brom)
West Bromwich Albion added 6-foot-1 striker Aune Heggebø to their ranks this summer after his electric start to the 2025 Norwegian Eliteserien campaign.
The 24-year-old scored seven goals in his first 11 league appearances for Brann between 29 March and 29 May, adding to his five goals across his final seven appearances of the 2024 Eliteserien season for the club.
Between the start of the 2024 campaign and his final appearance in the competition on 30 June 2025, Heggebø scored 18 goals in the Eliteserien – the second-highest tally behind only Bodø/Glimt’s Kasper Høgh (20), while only Høgh and two other players scored more headed goals (6) than Heggebø (5).
Heggebø converted a fifth of his non-penalty shots across those two seasons (20.0%), while it was again only Bodø/Glimt striker Høgh who averaged a higher non-penalty xG-per-shot average (0.20) and non-penalty xG per 90 average (0.60) than the new WBA forward.
More good news for West Brom fans is that Heggebø proved himself to be incredibly hard-working across the frontline while with Brann. Across the 2024 and 2025 league seasons, only three players won possession back from opponents in the final third more than he did (27).
Kyōgo Furuhashi (Birmingham City)
One of the most eye-catching transfers into the Championship this summer was Birmingham City’s acquisition of Japanese forward Kyōgo Furuhashi from Rennes for an initial fee reported to be £8 million.
He only moved to the Ligue 1 club in January from Scottish giants Celtic, but following just 120 minutes of competitive action and one start across six appearances, Furuhashi has joined Birmingham for the 2025-26 season.
After securing an English Football League points record in League One on the way to winning the title last season (108), Birmingham now have aspirations of becoming just the 13th team in EFL history to secure back-to-back promotions from the third tier to the top flight.
Furuhashi could play a big part in that potential success if he can replicate the form he showed at Celtic across four seasons at the club.
Between his first Celtic appearance in August 2021 and last in January 2025, Furuhashi scored 22 more goals than any other player for a Scottish Premiership side across all competitions (85), and with an additional 15 assists he totalled 100 goal involvements in 165 games for the club.
His 63 goals in 116 Scottish Premiership appearances were 12 more than the next highest scorer in the competition across that timeframe, while his minutes per goal average of 117 was aided by a sensational shot conversion rate of 21.4% – higher than any of the other 21 players to score at least 20 goals in that period.
Birmingham were one of just six teams within the top four tiers of English football to score 100 or more competitive goals in 2024-25 (111), and in Furuhashi, have added another player to make that attacking threat look even more menacing.
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