Done Deals: 5 Big Dogs, 5 Young Pups, 3 Exotic Breeds and 4 of Niche Pedigree
It was Dog Day Afternoon in NTT20 HQ yesterday, as we picked our favourite EFL moves of the past week through the highly scientific lens of canine taxonomy
Welcome to Done Deals, catching you up on all transfers completed since last Friday, with a special focus on the deals that caught the eyes of the NTT20.COM team.
There is a canine theme to this bulletin, for no particular reason. Our write-ups are going to cover a selection of EFL transfer ‘breeds’.
Big Dogs: Big-name signings, expected to be star players, with big fees and/or big wages to boot.
Young Pups: Under-21s heading out on loan. Will they be good boys or prove impossible to train?
Exotic Breeds: Imports from overseas – are they premium, or rescue dogs who may struggle to adapt?
Niche Pedigree: Less is known of their past, so we’ve dug up some expert knowledge.
Big Dogs
Macaulay Langstaff (ST) - [Millwall - Salford] - Undisclosed
Huw Davies
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the… room. In this new world of squad cost ratios and reducing the reliance on owner investment, Salford City do not have an obvious source of significant organic income. Yet it’s without doubt that Macaulay Langstaff is, at the very least, one of the most expensive signings in League Two history. He is likely to have cost a transfer fee in the high six-figure range and close to £10,000 per week in wages, two probable records if so. It’s a lot.
Now for the good news. Langstaff is still in his twenties. He scored 28 goals in a single League Two season – his first EFL season, in fact – as recently as 2023/24. He works hard, on the pitch and in training. He’s easily good enough for League One, but having skipped a level in jumping from League Two to the Championship, he has skipped it coming down as well.
You must create a goalscoring environment for him. Salford, though, have hired an attack-minded manager in Peter Cklamovski (a former Ange Postecoglou assistant), who comes into a club that created the fourth-most xG in League Two last season. They made the third-most Opta-defined big chances but scored only the 11th-most goals, which is where Langstaff comes in. Ryan Graydon, who was signed in January, was the chief culprit: 25 big chances missed across 2025/26, with Fleetwood and then with Salford, five more than any other player in the division.
Graydon is an interesting factor here. Having signed the Irishman after he’d contributed eight goals and three assists in 1,600 minutes (17.8 90s) playing up front for Fleetwood, Karl Robinson persisted with his new man during a goal drought before moving him to the right wing in the final weeks, to little benefit. Cklamovski favoured 3-4-3 or 4-3-3 formations with Malaysia and in the J-League, neither of which cater for two strikers. Does Langstaff’s arrival mean Graydon will be moved to the sideline again, or sidelined altogether?
Salford have also signed Abraham Odoh, a speedy inside forward, and still have Dan Udoh and Kallum Cesay. Langstaff is an upgrade, for certain, and if Cklamovski comes through on his promise of attacking football, he could score a lot of goals. It’ll be important, though, to find the right balance between Langstaff and two of Graydon, Cesay, Udoh and Odoh, plus any more new signings to come.
Dan Barlaser (CM) - [Middlesbrough - MK Dons] - Free
Sam Parry
It’s fair to say that a big part of correctly calling Dan Barlaser to MK Dons in our scouting piece earlier in summer was down to the manager. Of Paul Warne’s previous charges, Barlaser ranks eighth on the list of players used most often in his managerial career, just behind Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Ben Wiles – both also at MK Dons, both big dogs at League Two level last season. With MK hunting a double promotion, does Barlaser fit into the territory of an ambitious signing? A needle-mover? A big dog in League One?
The answer – “yes” – comes with the caveat that, at 29, Barlaser isn’t the player he once was. Some of that is down to performances, some to legs, some to a lack of minutes, and some to the role he has been asked to play. It doesn’t have to mean a regression, but he simply hasn’t added goals and assists in the way he once did:
18/19 (Accrington, L1): 45 apps, 3 goals, 2 assists
19/20 (Rotherham, L1): 35 apps, 2 goals, 5 assists
20/21 (Rotherham, CH): 34 apps, 3 goals, 4 assists
21/22 (Rotherham, L1): 52 apps, 9 goals, 10 assists
22/23 (Rotherham, CH): 31 apps, 2 goals, 7 assists
22/23 (Middlesbrough, CH): 12 apps, 0 goals, 1 assist
23/24 (Middlesbrough, CH): 41 apps, 0 goals, 5 assists
24/25 (Middlesbrough, CH): 26 apps, 1 goal, 1 assist
25/26 (Hibernian, SP): 37 apps, 0 goals, 3 assists
We’re not too concerned about that. Barlaser’s role in a Warne midfield will be all about getting the ball into dangerous areas. Get it forward. Get it wide. He has the long pass locked down, and that range enables him to hit feet and runners. Even last term, when Hibs fans didn’t exactly fall in love with their loanee, he still produced four accurate long balls per game. That’ll do it in League One, too.
When you look at how MK set up at times last season, in a 3-1-4-2, you can see how there’s a ready-made fit, either into what was Liam Kelly’s role or into a midfield two. Compared to Kelly, Barlaser’s that bit bigger, that bit more assertive in games, and will be playing under a manager who has got the best out of him before. It all makes sense, and those are the signings that can hit the ground running.
Kasey Palmer (AM) - [Hull - Luton] - Undisclosed
Sam Parry
Another sense-maker and another return, but this time of a more classic variety in that “home” reflects a roof, and not just a manager he’s played under before.
It doesn’t always pay to fall in love with a loanee. This time, it does. Palmer made a real impression on Luton fans during the second half of last season and – make no bones about it – this is huge for Jack Wilshere.
The Hatters turned in a lot of beige performances in 2025/26. Things didn’t always seem to tick. At their least anaemic and most colourful, Palmer tended to be involved, giving them a late-season boost that nearly clinched them the final play-off spot.
A huge part of that was down to his knack for linking play. He’s calm when collecting the ball under pressure and moving it on, and he helps to knit it all together. And, crucially, Luton don’t have to replace that profile anymore. That’s a big recruitment headache-soother.
What else did he bring last season? G-O-A-L-S.
After playing for seven different Championship clubs, the 29-year-old has found a new-old home where he should be technically above the level and ready to thrive. Palmer will fit like an old slipper into Wilshere’s system, and if he can produce anything close to the level that saw him score eight goals in the final 11 games of last season, then Luton are onto a familiar winner.
