I periodically review the transfer from the previous few weeks to see if I’ve missed anything because I’m a football fan.
It turns out that I have missed several news feeds even though I spend eight hours a day in close proximity to a computer. Five in particular jumped out at me, and you might have missed them too if I missed them. I’ve compiled a list of the five summer transfers that you may have overlooked because of this.
They’re not all former Imps, but a few of them are, in my opinion, quite significant figures in the EFL.
Lee Angol
You might be shocked to learn that Lee Angol is only 29 years old because he seems like a throwback. He moved from Sutton United to Morecambe, making this his fourteenth club change (and his seventeenth overall). He wasn’t particularly good for Sutton, and he even played just once during his second half of the season when on loan at Woking in the National League, so I was surprised to see him there.
He’s the master of those quick loans, having appeared twice for us during moments of temporary infirmity and once for Maidenhead.
John Akinde
After being let free by Danny and Nicky at Colchester, Big John is now on the move. Football is strange, isn’t it? Six years after I spoke with Danny about how hard they had pursued John in the summer of 2018, they are now breaking bad news to him.
He has since left City and has scored 12 goals in 86 for Colchester (one penalty) and 9 goals in 81 for Gillingham (two penalties). The huge striker is leaving the Football League and joining Braintree for the first time in nine years. At 35, he is nearing the end of a good career that included four promotions and 182 goals.
Zack Elbouzedi
It’s funny, the things you remember. I remember getting a phone call telling me we were signing Zack while standing on the platform of Newark railway station, waiting for a train to take me to the FSA Awards in 2019. The club had high hopes for him then, but it didn’t pan out here. He appeared 11 times, scoring twice, but was outstanding in the EFL Trophy, twice winning player of the round.
He’s had an interesting run since then – he joined Swedish top-flight side AIK in 2021 and ended up playing in Europe. He was then loaned to Swindon but didn’t make a huge impression in his 17 matches. This summer, he headed back to Ireland, joining Stephen Kenny’s St Patrick’s Athletic, where he’s playing in Europe once again. Keep an eye out this week as they look to win both matches of a two-legged tie in European competition for the first time since 2008/09.
Ryan Bowman
Now that we’ve moved on from the Imps, I can support the change. Every time Ryan Bowman faced the Imps, he was an arsehole, even though I’m sure he’s a great guy. The last team he played for was Shrewsbury. We won 3-0, and I was upset about an elbow he had given Roughan.
He’s simply always been one of those players that I knew would bully defenders, but I was never concerned about. He’s on the move; Rob Street has been replaced at the New Meadow by John Marquis, therefore Bowman has dropped into League Two with Cheltenham. Additionally, Street has left Cheltenham, and club record signing Aidan Keena has left, just eighteen months after joining for St. Patrick’s Day.
Mark Helm
This is quite unexpected. Helm was a lot of fun when he played against us. at nine goals and two assists in his eighteen months at Burton, I believed he had performed fairly. I also thought he was a decent player off the ball. Having gone through the Man Utd junior levels, he is only 22 years old and was a huge coup for them when he arrived from Burnley. Although he wouldn’t exactly suit our needs, I would have adored him at City and even mentioned him as someone to keep an eye on in FourFourTwo the previous season.
With Fleetwood Town’s recent relegation, he moved there perhaps with ambition. Helm is one of the numerous players from last season who Burton has let go in a bit of a clear-out.
