OTD: JENSON SEELT BORN

Born on this day in 2003 in Ede, the Netherlands, is current Sunderland defender Jenson Seelt. The 21-year-old signed for the Lads from PSV in summer 2023.

Seelt began his career at an early age with amateur Dutch outfit Fortissimo, moving to NEC Nijmegen aged nine and then PSV aged 14. He signed his first professional deal in 2019 on his 16th birthday and would make his debut in a senior competition for the first time with PSV Eindhoven U21 in the Eerste Divisie (the second tier of football in the Netherlands) in November 2020, coming off the bench in the final few minutes of a 3-2 defeat to TOP Oss.

The next season would be an important one for the youngster as he would make his debut for the senior PSV team, playing 15 minutes on the final day of the Eredivisie campaign. His first senior goal would also come in 2021-22 as he scored the second in a 2-0 victory at home to AZ Alkmaar U21s, I’m not sure how much that counts but it’s registered as a senior game of football because it was played in the second division. All in all it would be a bit of a breakout year for him because it was the first real time he’d featured regularly for PSV’s U21s.

His game time would only increase the following season as he made 33 appearances for PSV U21s. He scored two braces in the month of September and was handed the captain’s armband on two occasions.

In June 2023 he completed a move to Sunderland for a fee of around £1.7 million on a five year deal. It was an exciting signing. Burnley had tried to sign him in the previous January transfer window, he was young and was 6’4 so would help address our lack of height issue from the previous season that had cost us promotion in the end. A PSV fan we spoke to at the time also praised his confidence on the ball and his heading abilities, as well as pointing out that the second tier in the Netherlands (whilst not sounding that great on paper) is where the likes of Cody Gakpo of Liverpool and Donyell Malen of Aston Villa got their careers started.

Jenson didn't exactly burst onto the scene on Wearside though, his debut came away to Sheffield Wednesday, helping to see out a clean sheet in the final five minutes of a 3-0 win. He was mostly limited to the bench between that game and his first start at home to Birmingham City but he did play an hour of the 4-0 defeat to Middlesbrough (unfortunately). That aforementioned start vs Birmingham did show that he was capable of playing at Championship level, he played alongside Nectarios Triantis so he didn’t have an experienced defender in the second tier next to him and Pierre Ekwah didn’t have the greatest game of his life either so he was forced to bail him out on more than one occasion.

He was rewarded with featuring in the next two games and he got himself an assist in the second of these matches but we still lost 2-1 to Huddersfield Town. Injuries meant that he was placed outside of his usual role as a centre-back into right-back in the next few fixtures and whilst it took him a few games to adapt, after a while he ended up being pretty effective. A 3-1 win over Stoke City showcased this perfectly, it was just a tad unfortunate that a pretty innocuous own goal put a damper on a good performance.

Regular starts were found for him during our run of six defeats in a row towards the end of the 2023-24 season, he played in the final four of those but he picked up quite a bad knee injury so wasn’t involved for any of the last nine games. He didn't feature again in a matchday squad until February 2025, occupying a place on the bench in a 2-0 win over Luton Town. He wouldn't get onto the pitch until the following month, playing just over 20 minutes as we were battered away to Coventry City. His contract runs until June 2028 so he has some time to still forge a career on Wearside, still aged just 22.