NTT20 Scouts: 15 League One strikers
League One is suddenly a source of striking talent – Huw Davies and Craig Bradley get their sun caps on for some more summer scouting.
Huw Davies & Craig Bradley
New and exciting things are happening in England’s third tier.
For several years, League One wasn’t a great source of strikers for Championship clubs looking to recruit from below. To use some very basic numbers, the average age of each season’s top five scorers between 2021/22 and 22/24 was 29 years old, with veterans in the midst of an Indian summer – Matty Taylor, Chris Martin, David McGoldrick – joining stalwarts such as Alfie May and Colby Bishop.
That changed in 2024/25. League One’s most prolific strikers were Charlie Kelman, Jay Stansfield and Richard Koné, all aged between 21 and 23, while Malik Mothersille and particularly Rumarn Burrell had eyebrow-raising campaigns in the bottom half. Kelman’s goals on loan at Leyton Orient convinced Charlton to buy him for their return to the Championship, while Stansfield was promoted with Birmingham, Mothersille moved up the division to Stockport, and Koné and Burrell moved up the pyramid to QPR (who also signed a pair of 23-year-old League One stars in Kwame Poku and Amadou Mbengue).
This is the template for clubs hoping to find value. Sign this year’s Koné; sign next year’s Burrell.
The good news for those clubs, either in the Championship or chasing promotion to it, is that 2025/26 gave us even more strikers who look ready to leave League One behind, this summer or the next. But who? And why? And, most importantly, where?
1. The Golden Boot winner
DOM BALLARD
21
Leyton Orient
🚀 Ceiling — West Ham (CH)
🧱 Floor — Leicester (L1)
🎯 Sweet Spot — Wrexham (CH), Middlesbrough (CH), Cardiff (CH)
Let’s be clear: if it wasn’t for Ballard’s 23 goals, the 2024/25 play-off finalists would have been relegated in 2025/26. Having his services was no fluke, however – it was excellent recruitment. Rather than take him from Southampton on loan, as almost every League One club (including Orient) would normally do with a 20-year-old academy striker, the O’s spent a six-figure sum to buy him outright.
This showed boldness and ambition. Keep in mind that Ballard had scored only six goals in the equivalent of 25 90s across three League One loans with Reading, Blackpool and Cambridge – a steady but not outstanding start to his EFL career. There were no guarantees. It was a calculated risk that paid off, as Leyton Orient are now in possession of a valuable asset whose Golden Boot will shine temptingly to magpie eyes in the Championship. Just look at Kelman.
There are two important questions: one for the sellers, one for the buyers. Orient’s squad needs improvements across the board, so is it wiser to sell Ballard and fund those, or to keep him while attempting cheaper upgrades, in the hope that his value increases further while driving them up the table?
As for those on the other side of the market stall, Ballard’s work outside the box isn’t markedly above League One level, so are you punting on pure goalscoring or hoping that his all-round game will improve to stand up to the test of Championship football?
Perhaps it will. He’s only 21. For a rumoured £3m minimum fee, though, and possibly much more, he may represent a bigger risk than paying a similar sum for…