Leicester City go into the summer without any senior strikers, making it their transfer priority. There’s plenty of places they can turn to find a 20-goal forward
The last time Leicester City were in League One, they had a prolific goalscorer to fire them to promotion, Matty Fryatt netting 27 times en route to the title.
Finding someone new to plunder in the goals will be the transfer priority this summer, especially as City will soon have no senior strikers, with both Jordan Ayew and Patson Daka out of contract.
So where does a club find a League One hitman? Here, we look at the players to score 20 or more goals in the division over the past five seasons to see if there are clues over where City should look.
Dom Ballard scored 23 goals for a relegation-battling Leyton Orient side this season, and was the only player in the division to get to 20.
Joining Orient from Southampton last summer, Ballard had been prolific for the Saints’ youth sides, scoring 52 goals in 60 games across U18 Premier League and Premier League 2 fixtures.
But that hit-rate didn’t immediately transfer to the senior game. Last season, Ballard scored three goals in 35 League One matches during loans with Blackpool and Cambridge.
So City may not be able to raid a club’s academy for a hotshot striker and hope they will be an instant hit. Players need time to get the grips with senior football first.
Last season, a Leyton Orient striker was again the sole player to get more than 20 goals in the division, Charlie Kelman on the scoresheet 21 times.
He was only 22 at the start of last season and while that may seem on the younger side, he had broken through at Southend at 18 and moved to QPR, where he’d been unable to make an impact. He didn’t pull up trees in his first few loans either.
Scott Twine scored 20 goals for MK Dons aged 22 four seasons ago,and again that was after breaking through at Swindon aged 17 and needed a few years to reach a level where he could score regularly.
Will Keane is an even more extreme example. Earning rave reviews as a youngster at Manchester United and playing regularly for England’s youth teams, he’d never really found his shooting boots at senior level.
Then, aged 28, he scored 26 times to fire Wigan to promotion. Sometimes, there will be players that deserve a second chance.
City’s greatest-ever player came from non-league and so they shouldn’t be the sort of club to turn their noses up at strikers from the fifth tier or lower.
Both Alfie May and Colby Bishop have had 20-goal League One seasons in recent years despite playing in non-league into their early 20s.
But both needed a few seasons playing league football before everything really clicked and they hit the big numbers.
Bigger profile used to effect
May is also an example of a bigger club using their profile to attract the best players. That could work for City.
Before he netted 23 times for Charlton, May had had two seasons scoring 20 goals in League One with Cheltenham. As one of the bigger sides in the divisions, the Addicks were able to convince May to join.
Ipswich also used their standing to bring in Conor Chaplin when they were in League One, the attacking midfielder signing from a Barnsley outfit that had been a regular in the Championship play-offs, then scoring 26 for the Tractor Boys in League One.
Due a bigger club
While Bishop came out of non-league, it also felt like he was due a chance at a bigger club by the time he got to Portsmouth.
He had hit double figures for three seasons in a row at Accrington Stanley, but elevated his game upon joining Pompey, reaching 20 goals two seasons in a row.
Jonson Clarke-Harris fits that brief too. It wasn’t until his seventh season of league football that he reached double figures, but after two seasons of doing so with Bristol Rovers, he switched to Peterborough and promptly netted a seriously impressive 31 goals.
Veteran options
While the most recent top scorers in the division have been young upstarts, it’s not to say veterans of the EFL cannot hit big numbers.
In 22-23, 34-year-old David McGoldrick scored 22 times for Derby. The year before, 31-year-old Matty Taylor bagged 20 for Oxford. Find the right experienced player and they can do a job.
Overseas signings rare
Interestingly, only one player to hit 20 goals in League One in the past five years has done so after signing for a club from outside of England. And even then, it was only Scotland.
Ross Stewart’s best tally in the Scottish Premiership was seven with Ross County when Sunderland signed him. In his first full season with the Black Cats, he scored 24 times.
Signings from overseas are a rarity in League One, with only a handful across the league every year. But it seems if a prolific goalscorer is wanted, it’s better to look closer to home.
Be the first to comment