Analysing PL2 to EFL loans
Felix Morson-Pate examines how Premier League 2 players enter the EFL via loans, revealing trends for club partnerships and positional patterns from nearly 500 moves across the last three seasons.
Felix Morson-Pate
A key aspect of the transfer window for the majority – if not all – of the clubs within the EFL is the loan market. Specifically, it’s about bringing in younger players from clubs higher up the pyramid, many of whom are experiencing their first taste of senior football.
In the last three seasons, 349 individuals have gone out on 490 loans to clubs up and down the 72 from Premier League 2 (PL2) academies – some with much more success than others. I’ve collated them to try and spot trends in terms of clubs, positions and leagues, as well as to create a barometer for a ‘successful’ loan.
That way, when your club is linked with yet another highly-touted youngster this summer, you’ll at least have a benchmark for whether they might cut it in the men’s game.
Who Are We Talking About?
Before we dig into the numbers, it’s important to establish which parent clubs we’re discussing. Not all PL2 clubs play in the Premier League, and not all Premier League clubs have a PL2 side.
To have a PL2 team, a club must run a Category One academy, the highest of four ratings, and 26 clubs currently have that rating. Conveniently for us (though not for those concerned about the widening gap between the Premier League and the EFL), 17 clubs have remained in the top flight for the past three seasons.
Of these, only Brentford and Bournemouth do not have a PL2 equivalent. Leicester, Leeds and Southampton have all spent time in the Premier League since 2022, but for the purposes of this analysis, they won’t be included. Nor will the other eight clubs with Category One academies who haven’t been in the top flight in that time.
With that caveat in mind, let’s take a look at the results…
Loan Trends by Position and League
There are some immediate patterns in the way players are loaned out by position and by division:
Goalkeepers are most commonly loaned further down the pyramid. That makes intuitive sense: many keepers’ first experiences in senior football begin in the non-league system before they gradually climb upward. There’s no benefit in a keeper being loaned out unless they are arriving to be #1, and that’s easier to guarantee lower down the leagues. England internationals Jordan Pickford and Dean Henderson are textbook examples.
In defence, the split is interesting. There are plenty of full-backs in the Championship, but there’s a clear trend for centre-backs to be loaned further down. This is likely to reflect a desire from parent clubs to test their young defenders physically, to match the strong technical levels that such academy players tend to possess. This also explains why centre-backs, alongside strikers, are the most loaned-out positions. These two roles arguably face the biggest leap in physical demands between youth and senior football.
Midfield is mixed. There is a slight tendency for players to be loaned higher up the pyramid the further forward they play, again aligning with the goal of developing technical finesse versus physical resilience.
The makeup of the front three is intriguing. Significantly more left-wingers are loaned out than right-wingers. The NTT20.COM writers have discussed this at length within the team, and we think it’s hard to nail down the exact reasons for this without knowing the footedness of the players. These days, LW does not mean left-footer, and vice versa. One theory is that most clubs want their skilful wide forwards to play inverted, where they can impact the game more with goals and assists moving inside onto their stronger foot, and right-footed players form a higher proportion of wide players and #10 types. But also, wide forwards are generally expected to be able to contribute on either side, which makes the data difficult to analyse.
As for strikers, nearly as many were loaned to League One as to the Championship and League Two combined. It appears that the third tier feels like the perfect level to provide a balance of regular minutes, confidence-building goal returns, and physically demanding defenders. Recent success stories such as Kieron Bowie and Dale Taylor suggest League One may well be the ideal proving ground for budding No.9s… although it’s worth pointing out that no PL2 loanees have troubled the top of the League One goalscoring charts over the last few years. It’s incredibly rare for a loanee striker to arrive and rattle off 15+ goals.
Which Clubs Loan Out the Most Players?
Looking at the 15 ‘ever-presents’ – i.e. PL2 academies active across all three seasons – we see a few trends, especially when linking academy strategy to senior team context.
Five of the so-called 'Big Six' send more players to the Championship than the two lower divisions combined. This reinforces their position as elite academies able to cherry-pick the right kind of loans. The exception is Manchester United, who favour a different approach: they tend to send players out younger, often to lower EFL levels, and are more willing to sanction permanent exits after a strong loan spell. More highly-rated talents are usually kept in-house, reflecting a long-standing focus on integration into the first team.
Meanwhile, clubs such as Crystal Palace and Fulham have built a reputation for aiming lower down the pyramid. Their focus appears to be on maximum exposure to senior football across varied systems and playing styles.
Loan types were split into three categories: full season, half season (recalled by January), and winter (loaned in January or February through to the end of the season).
Bigger clubs mostly favour full-season loans, likely designed to embed players into a specific system for the full campaign. Others, such as Everton, Wolves and West Ham, use shorter or multiple loans per season, perhaps to increase versatility or market value.
At the top of the loan output table, Brighton stand out. Their strategic use of the loan market, underpinned by one of the first dedicated loan directors in football, shows the model functioning at a high level. By contrast, Newcastle, Tottenham and Everton don’t appear to see EFL loans as a hugely attractive option for their top young talent.
Newcastle’s relatively low output may be influenced by geography. Clubs prefer to keep loanees close, but Newcastle’s proximity to rivals with their own Category One academies and the limited local pool likely restricts their options.
We don’t think this type of EFL loan analysis has been done elsewhere, which is exactly why we commissioned this piece from Felix. Subscribe to NTT20.COM to receive regular pieces of unrivalled EFL writing each week.
Which EFL Clubs Take the Most PL2 Loans?
There’s no clear trend across the divisions when it comes to who takes in the most PL2 loans. But the clubs most frequently taking players also tend to appear in the most active club-to-club loan pathways.
This suggests that strong, long-term relationships with academy staff – and a reputation for giving players game time – encourage PL2 clubs to keep returning with new talent.
Liverpool, for instance, have forged close ties with a number of North West clubs. This keeps travel minimal and allows their academy to monitor players closely throughout the season.
Conversely, some clubs have taken only one or two PL2 loanees over the last three years. Some were not in the EFL throughout that period, so their low numbers are understandable.
Others, such as Bristol City, have consciously chosen to promote from within rather than develop talent from other academies. It’s a reminder that the loan system is one of many strategies, and it’s not the right fit for every club.
How Many of These Loans Were Successful?
So how do we measure success?
A basic rule of thumb is that if a signing plays more than half of the available minutes, the move can be deemed a success. While we didn’t have access to full minutes data, a combination of appearances and squad selections allowed for rough estimates.
By that measure, the average loan across most leagues and positions has been a success, with the exception of League Two defenders. This likely ties back to earlier points about the challenge of adapting to the EFL’s physical demands.
It also underlines a wider point that Ali has discussed on The England Pod: elite academies find it hard to develop centre-backs with skills that serve them well lower down the pyramid. PL2 football is noticeably different to EFL football when it comes to the number and intensity of duels. As a general rule, PL2 centre-backs simply aren’t rigorously tested when it comes to defending their box.
This issue seems to be exacerbated when they drop down into League One and League Two on loan. No EFL manager can afford to ‘carry’ a centre-back who is struggling physically or aerially, no matter how good they may be on the ball, and they aren’t incentivised to allow them time to adapt. In that instance, they’re more likely to be quietly dropped and sent back in the next available window – at which point they’re a young player attached to a big academy, with a failed L1/L2 loan on their CV, having perhaps been set up to fail. How can Category One academies produce central defenders better prepared for life as a professional outside of the elite clubs?
A histogram of game time distribution shows that the majority of players hit somewhere between 50% and 90% of estimated minutes. The largest single group played around 80%.
Standout Performers: The 90%+ Club
Let’s finish with those rare but memorable players who featured in 90% or more of available matches. This is the dream for every loaning club, and every parent club.
These names will be familiar to EFL fans. Some returned to their loan clubs permanently and continued to impress (e.g. Stansfield and Hutchinson). Others used their loan spells as a launchpad to top-flight or international careers (e.g. Casadei, Norton-Cuffy and Charles).
What this shows is that – while there’s no magic formula for a perfect loan – opportunity, environment and understanding are key. Development isn’t linear. Some players adapt quickly due to their attributes, and others take time. But when a club creates the right conditions, talent has a chance to shine.
At the time of writing, only four EFL loans from PL2 have been announced for the 2024/25 season: Teddy Sharman-Lowe (from Chelsea to Bolton), Josh Feeney (Aston Villa to Huddersfield), Kyle McAdam (Forest to Mansfield) and Damola Ajayi (Spurs to Doncaster). But as the campaign approaches and squads are trimmed, expect many more to follow.
And now you’ve got a handy reference point for evaluating how well your club’s next loan signing might fare.
Great article! Really enjoyed it! Thank you
It looks like possible error about season: "At the time of writing, only four EFL loans from PL2 have been announced for the 2024/25 season ...". Anyway, it was good article, thank you!