Transfer Targets: League Two
With the January window fast approaching, we profile the League Two performers who look primed and ready for League One and beyond.
Bit awkward, this…
Today’s piece was slated to go out last week. But while writing the intro, Ali spotted an intriguing theme and ran it through to a fascinating conclusion (and a whole podcast). Put simply, League Two has gotten old and now possesses a much smaller pool of club-owned youngsters.
That’s not going to stop us, though. Transfer Targets is a series built on an unquenchable thirst to browse the clips, an insatiable appetite to nerd-out amongst the numbers, and an unshakeable conviction that there are gems in the fourth tier.
Our five selections this year are all players who will be in the process of being discussed and scouted by any League One recruitment team worth their salt. We’ve got a good hit rate, too.
Now, 2023 was a crazy edition, with four of the five players we wrote about being signed by Championship(!) clubs within six months: Jack Currie, Adam Mayor, Connor O’Riordan and Ali Al-Hamadi.
Something slightly more normal in 2024: two of last year’s group have since been signed by top League One clubs – Ethon Archer (Luton) and Joseph Olowu (Stockport) – while another (Samson Tovide) would also have done so this summer, had he not failed a medical.
And now it’s 2025. These are the players we think are ready to make the step up.
Kyreece Lisbie
Winger
Colchester United
22
Ali Maxwell
Kyreece Lisbie, 22, leads League Two for non-penalty goals and assists per 90.
Kyreece Lisbie, 22, is 2nd in League Two for non-penalty xG per 90, per Opta Analyst.
Kyreece Lisbie, 22, is 15th for open-play expected assists per 90, per Opta Analyst.
Kyreece Lisbie, 22, is a winger in his first full season as a senior professional.
Son of former Charlton and Leyton Orient striker Kevin Lisbie, Kyreece left Brentford after two and a half years to join Colchester in January. He gobbled up some senior minutes on loan at Braintree towards the end of last season, and started 2025/26 as a bench option for Danny Cowley. In the first seven league games, he scored three goals as a substitute. Now 12 straight league starts have followed, bringing with them a growing status as one of League Two’s most dangerous attackers.
What you need to know at this point is that Lisbie is rapid. His top speed is among the quickest in the whole EFL. Combine that with an ability to sustain it over long distances and you have transition-attack dynamite – perfect for the way that football is currently being played.
All recent studies show that high-intensity running and sprint distances have increased dramatically in football over the past 5 to 10 years. And, as more teams look to integrate physical and football data, the majority of Championship and League One clubs are beginning to lean on data providers such as SkillCorner.
Gone are the days of ‘distance covered’ being taken seriously. Now, it’s all about a higher number of sprints; more intense acceleration; more repeated high-speed efforts. This is as much about pressing and counter-pressing as it is the more obvious benefits of speed in attacking situations. In a game that’s faster, more compressed and more transition-heavy than ever, pace allows you to create space, cover space, destroy space, and survive the physical demands.
The image of Lisbie streaking in behind is one of those obvious benefits of having such an athlete at this level. If you clip the ball into space behind the defence, Lisbie’s going to get there. Here’s a good example from a recent game:
From the ball in the opposition goalkeeper’s hands, to the ball in the opposition goalkeeper’s net, in the space of 12 seconds. It felt a bit unfair on Cheltenham, but this is something that has happened time and time again. Lisbie is a wide poacher and he consistently takes a poacher’s shots, rather than a wide forward’s shots, using his speed to run onto through balls or crash the six-yard box to finish balls flashed across. Here is what a wide poacher’s shot-map looks like…
…compared to that of a more classic wide forward or inverted winger.
Lisbie takes a much higher proportion of his shots from central areas. His game is not to receive the ball wide, cut inside and shoot; it’s to make clever runs from wide areas into central areas in order to take shots closer to goal. It’s off the ball, not on the ball.
There’s no getting away from the fact that he has also missed some big chances this season, and his finishing has been mixed – some of it composed and calculated, some of it wild. Lisbie isn’t always the cleanest technician, nor the cleanest dribbler. But you cannot deny that he does exactly what you want from an attacking player: he is arguably the league’s biggest goal threat yet he creates chances as well, as shown by the chart below, taken from WT Analysis’ excellent player dashboard.
Lisbie isn’t whipping in deadly crosses onto the head of a striker – in fact, he has completed just two crosses from 27 – but once he scampers in behind, he has the space, time and composure to slide high-quality passes across to his team-mates.
Now, Colchester as a team have been flying in the last 12 games. Is Lisbie’s success more down to team function? Is this run of form a flash in the pan or a sign of a serious future? At this moment, there isn’t loads to go off – but nor are there many, or indeed any, comparable players in League Two right now. There is one in the league above, though: twin brother Kyrell has broken into Peterborough’s first team under Luke Williams and is showing some similar attributes!
Would Kyreece Lisbie be available for transfer in January, or the summer? Well, Colchester United are up for sale again after a proposed takeover fell through in the summer. They have an expensive Category 2 academy – one of only three in League Two – and a business model that relies on player sales to keep losses to a minimum. He certainly isn’t unavailable.
Alassana Jatta (Notts County)
Striker
Notts County
26
Ali Maxwell
Alassana Jatta is hardly a young, lesser-known striker in need of an in-depth scouting report. The reason he has been selected here is simple: we think he’s the biggest story among League Two strikers heading into January.