FourFourTwo’s annual list of the top 50 footballers in the EFL has been unveiled – with MK Dons midfielder Dan Crowley chosen as this season’s best player in League Two.
The list is a tradition that has been going for 20 years – every season since 2005, FFT has unveiled its top 50, chosen thanks to a poll of fans of all 72 Football League clubs.
Norwich City’s Borja Sainz has been named as the best player in the EFL this season, with Richard Kone of Wycombe Wanderers voted as the finest in League One.
Dan Crowley on Arsenal move
Headlines are nothing new for Crowley, who was highly rated as a youngster and moved from Aston Villa to Arsenal at the age of 15.
That switch caused some controversy, with Villa unhappy to lose him, but it was a move that he felt he simply had to make.
“The move to Arsenal caused a big row over the fee, which was a bit messy to be at the centre of, but when Arsene Wenger sits down with you and tells you that he wants you, it’s hard to turn him down,” Crowley says, in an exclusive interview for the new issue of FourFourTwo magazine.
Ultimately, he never made a first-team appearance for the Gunners, going out on loan to Barnsley, Oxford and Dutch club Go Ahead Eagles, before moving to the Netherlands permanently with Willem II in 2017.
A loan at Cambuur followed, then he returned to the West Midlands with Birmingham City in the Championship, before further spells with Hull City, Cheltenham Town and Morecambe.
Crowley joined Notts County in League Two in 2023, netting 16 goals from midfield last season and continuing that fine form in the first half of the current campaign at Meadow Lane.
That prompted fellow League Two club MK Dons to snap him up for an undisclosed fee during the January transfer window, even if it meant dropping lower down the league.
Despite that, our readers have voted him as the best player in the fourth tier this term.
“I like to think there aren’t many midfielders similar to me at this level – there are great players in League Two, but in terms of ability and understanding the game, I think I’m a bit different,” he says.
You can read the full interview with Crowley in the new issue of FourFourTwo, out now.
