Transfer Trends: A Retrospective look at EFL League One Recruitment Analysis in the summer window
With the January transfer window in full flow, I decided to take a look back at the previous Summer Window to get back into some data analysis. This piece was originally written in September and published on substack, hence the delay in transferring it across to Medium.
We can use this to identify trends in the league's transfer dealings and to examine each club's recruitment strategies more closely.
Why look into League One? Well, I generally prefer to stay outside the top five leagues with my work and in this summer’s transfer window, we’ve seen a clear dichotomy in how League One clubs approach squad building.
On one side, there are clubs like Birmingham City, opting to spend big, breaking records to bring Jay Stansfield back to the club, aiming for an immediate return to the Championship.
Conversely, clubs like newly promoted Crawley Town have much less financial power and of course, League One is home to shrewd spending clubs such as Peterborough United. Posh are well well-versed in signing talented players for the future and selling them on for profits.
First, we need the raw data from Transfermarkt. We can access this with a few simple lines of code in either Python or R. Once we have our data, we need to clean it up a bit to make it usable. Fortunately, Tableau can help out with this, so in only a few clicks, we have a nice and tidy data set ready to manipulate.
Arrivals
To kick things off, let’s take a look at the leagues in which our League One clubs are doing their shopping. The map above demonstrates that whilst (as we would expect), there are plenty of European leagues being utilised, EFL League One teams are open to looking further afield in their talent acquisition.
Burton Albion ventured into the MLS to secure a loan deal for Alejandro Bran from Minnesota United. Charlton Athletic brought in 19-year-old Kaheim Dixon from Arnett Gardens in the Jamaican Premier League. The aforementioned Crawley Town shelled out to bring in Benjamin Tanimu from Singida SC in Tanzania.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Birmingham City’s recruitment spanned the furthest in geographical terms. Blues made signings from England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Germany and Japan.
Here, we can see the various nationalities of the players involved in EFL League One transfers. Interestingly, we can see a fair number of players of Caribbean and Central American nationality.
One of which is Burton’s signing of Alejandro Bran who hails from Costa Rica. Kaheim Dixon is, of course, from Jamaica, Corey Addai of Stockport County is also a Jamaican international.
US-born Chilean youth international Vicente Reyes joined Cambridge United on loan from Norwich City. Additionally, Trinidad & Tobago international Daniel Phillips put pen to paper for Stevenage, joining from Scottish side, St. Johnstone.
Gibraltar’s Jaiden Bartolo moved to Wycombe Wanderers and Spanish defensive midfielder Mahamadou Susoho opted to sign for Peterborough United, on loan from Manchester City.
Furthermore, Ayumu Yokoyama made the jump from Sagan Tosu to the West Midlands, signing for promotion favourites, Birmingham City. Plus, Indonesian international Elkan Baggott secured a loan move to, newly appointed Steve Bruce’s, Blackpool.
Wrexham secured the signature of Gambian forward Mo Faal. The 21-year-old will be looking to build on a decent loan spell at Walsall last season. Finally, Nottingham-born Zimbabwean international Tendayi Darikwa put pen to paper for Lincoln City in the summer window.
Now, we can look at the age profile of the arrivals into League One. In this sample, Transfermarkt includes players promoted from within, so when a player is moved from the youth setup into the first team, it is considered a transfer into the team.
Interestingly there were 39 players promoted from youth teams into their club’s first team over the summer. This demonstrates that League One clubs are committed to youth development and that there is a pathway into first-team football for young players.
The data viz shows us the wide age range of the players transferring into the league. On the lower end of the spectrum, we have 16-year-old Emmanuel Osho who moved into the Reading first team setup from the youth team. On the flip side, 40-year-old goalkeeper Andy Lonergan joined the 17th club of his career by penning a deal with Wigan Athletic.
The average age of transfers arriving in League One this season was 23.43 years, further demonstrating that this is a league where young players can thrive and gain some vital first-team experience.
Looking at the total transfer spend by our League One clubs, it’s no surprise to see Birmingham City miles ahead. The vast majority of their outlay comes in the form of the record-breaking €17.8 million to secure the signature of Jay Stansfield from Fulham.
The Blues shelled out a total of €35.4 million in a bid to put together a promotion-winning side. Christoph Klarer and Willum Thór Willumsson were their second and third biggest signings, setting Tom Brady and co. back a further €4.15 and €4 million respectively.
As we can see, there is a significant drop from Birmingham to the second highest spenders, Charlton Athletic. As far as the records show, The Addicks spent a total of €1.18 million (three of their transfers were classed as undisclosed fees).
Only four clubs (Birmingham, Charlton, Wrexham and Peterborough) spent north of €1 million indicating clubs in League One are perhaps more willing to opt for unproven talents who are available at lesser fees.
Moreover, we have to acknowledge that a significant number of transfers into the league come via the loan system. 86 players from 11 different leagues moved on loan to League One clubs over the summer. The majority came from the Premier League 2 and the EFL Championship.
This data viz shows us the total transfer spend by position on the pitch during the summer window. We can see that EFL League One clubs mostly opted to part with their money for centre forwards (heavily influenced by the Stansfield fee), central defenders and attacking midfielders.
It is worth pointing out that the top five transfer fees paid out during the summer window were all by Birmingham City. These numbers would look significantly different if it wasn’t for the newly relegated club’s spending spree.
Departures
Let’s turn our attention towards transfers out of the EFL League One, after all, clubs need to balance the books. Much like the data viz we saw for transfers into the league, here we can see the variety of leagues that players departing English football’s third tier opted to move to.
Looking at the far-flung areas of the world, Shrewsbury Town approved a loan deal for Kiwi, Max Mata to return to his homeland. The 24-year-old striker has joined newly-formed A-League side Auckland FC.
Japanese central defender, Yuta Nakayama departed Huddersfield Town after two years, joining Machida Zelvia in his native Japan. Lastly, Juninho Bacuna departed Birmingham City for Saudi Arabia, penning a deal with Mecca-based club, Al-Wehda FC.
Similarly to what we did with the arrivals, we can analyse the age range of players departing the league. Firstly, we noted that the average age of players joining League One clubs was 23.43 years. Here, we can see that the average age of players leaving League One clubs during the summer was 25.32 years.
This suggests that clubs are very much watching League One and looking to pick up talented players before they reach their peak. Interestingly there was a lot of movement between clubs in the league with 51 players (65 including loans) moving from one League One club to another.
In the final section of this analysis, we will look at the money coming into League One. Despite their record-breaking outlay, Birmingham City could only bring in €5 million which came in the form of Jordan James’s departure to Stade Rennais.
It is, of course, worth pointing out that these numbers don’t include undisclosed fees.
Huddersfield Town raked in €5.9 million for Jack Rudoni who joined Championship side Coventry City. Fellow second-tier side, Hull City saw fit to get the chequebook out and part with €4.7 million to bring Wigan Athletic defender Charlie Hughes to the MKM Stadium.
Peterborough United did also some shrewd business, acquiring just over €3.5 million for both Ronnie Edwards and Harrison Burrows. Money that will undoubtedly be cleverly reinvested in the coming months.
Conclusion
There, we have it — we have taken a magnifying glass to the numbers behind the EFL League One summer window.
We have identified the leagues which the clubs chose to bring players in from, as well as where in the world the departing players opted to move on.
Trends have shown us that the average age for players coming into the league is 23 years old, demonstrating that this is certainly a league for young players to gain some experience.
The amount of loans into the league from Premier League development teams and EFL Championship teams suggests that plenty of clubs see this league as the ideal environment for their young players to thrive.
We have highlighted the impact of Birmingham City’s relegation and how their presence heavily influences the total transfer spend in the league. It will be interesting to see if the huge spending spree results in the desired first-time promotion back to the Championship for the Blues.
Overall, it has been a fascinating window to follow and we are seeing some incredibly smart recruitment from clubs lower down the English pyramid. League One should be a very entertaining league to follow this season.
Originally published at https://bethlimb.substack.com.
