TARGETS (League One)

In part one of a new transfer series, Ali Maxwell scans the League One landscape for emerging talent ahead of the January Transfer Window.

Ali Maxwell

2024 is just over five weeks away. What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Mine is to lose weight, drink less, exercise more, become a better version of myself, expand the NTT20 empire, achieve commercial success, experience daily feelings of joy and gratitude cover the EFL’s January Transfer Window in an entertaining, exciting manner on NTT20.COM.

My task before the window opens? To build a shortlist of players — from Leagues One and Two — for the benefit of those who don’t follow those leagues as closely as we do. Today, we’re looking at League One.

If we were running a recruitment team in the Championship, and were tasked with adding some quality in January — not just for the short term, but to be a part of the team for years to come — we would be sending our scouts to watch the following names closely over the next 5 weeks.

All players are aged 23 and under. While I strongly believe there is value in attracting peak-age players, or even those in their early 30s, to provide here-and-now quality, it’s no secret that clubs are obsessed with resale value.

With a player from each area of the pitch (aside from goalkeepers, because I don’t trust them), here’s NTT20.COM’s January League One shortlist…

But first… A special thanks to Albion Analytics for their amazing, open-to-the-public dashboard visualisation app, which covers the entire EFL and which I have used to demonstrate some of my player analysis. It is rare to have such an intuitive, wide-ranging tool available to all EFL data enthusiasts, so a big thanks from all of us for such generosity.