TARGETS: League One

Championship sides looking for a January glow-up should target these five players.

The game is afoot…

Sam Parry: We’ve already trained our Sherlockian sights on targets in the National League and League Two, and now the denouement has been reached. The detective work is over. We’ve put down our deerstalkers, our spyglasses, our pipes, and our… violins? Here’s the swansong.

If we were a Championship recruitment team, which players would we scout ahead of the January Transfer Window? Can we identify five young players who could raise a club’s ceiling right away whilst having room to grow themselves? We’ve pieced together the clues; it’s up to others to complete the case.

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Attacking midfielder/Striker — Thelo Aasgaard (Wigan Athletic)

Huw Davies

Such is the nature of young talent, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that Thelonius ‘Thelo’ Aasgaard has played in more than 150 games for Wigan without attracting much interest from above – until now. But, as Ali said on the Monday pod only this week, “Sometimes it takes a couple of seasons”, and the man with the EFL’s most powerful name (an honour he inherited from Max Power) has begun to hit his straps in 2024/25.

Gone is the low-yield wellying of a ball from 30 yards, replaced by a more focused line of attack between the posts. All right, it’s not entirely gone, but the percentage of Aasgaard’s shots that he takes from outside the box has fallen season-on-season from 58% to 48% to, currently, 39%. In fact, he has already surpassed his total xG from last season, thanks to his xG per 90 climbing from 0.20 to 0.36.

The 22-year-old’s goalscoring threat has led Shaun Maloney to start playing him as a striker… sort of. 

Aasgaard’s touch maps in his last four league starts (source: sofascore.com)

Aasgaard is nominally leading Wigan’s line but primarily taking up deeper positions, operating as a box-crashing No.10. Having crashed said box, he can finish with either his preferred right foot or his left, often opting for power when it’s his left, and three of his last 10 goals in 2024 have been headers. He has had a little help from goalkeeping errors this season, but there was nothing to doubt about last week’s goal against Bolton – just some casually brilliant close control to enjoy:

However, the Liverpool-born Norwegian youth international isn’t just a goalscorer, which is vital given his natural position in attacking midfield. Either when starting centrally or when coming in off the left, his dribbling ability and willingness to shoot means he draws in defenders and wins fouls at, ironically, a healthy rate. He probably hasn’t scored another first-time rabona from 20 yards, not since he was 15, but then he probably hasn’t tried.

He’s not much of a creator – not a creator at all, really – but Aasgaard has the technique, directness and goalscoring instincts to make him a threat to defences, including those in the Championship if he gets his move.

And if all else fails, he can always follow in his parents’ talented footsteps and become Thelo with the Cello. Maybe then he’d have a posh website.

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Midfielder — Hector Kyprianou (Peterborough United)

Craig Bradley