It’s a tradition that has now been going for 20 years – every season since 2005, FourFourTwo has unveiled a list of the top 50 players in the EFL, and we do it by consulting our readers.
We polled fans of all 72 Football League clubs, asking supporters to identify the top performers in their team’s division, not including players from their own side.
Championship fans submitted a ranked list of their 10 best players, while supporters in Leagues One and Two sent us their favourite five – the tallies were then added up, and a weighting applied to each division, to reveal our half-century.
Norwich City star Borja Sainz wins our vote
Four years ago, an Hispanic winger tore up the Championship for Norwich City and finished second in our annual top 50 countdown, behind Ivan Toney.
In 2025, Borja Sainz has gone one better than Emi Buendia that season: he has been voted by our readers as the EFL player of the year.
Comparisons between Sainz and his Canaries predecessor have been made for some time – at 24, the Spaniard is the exact same age that Buendia was in 2021, when the Argentine netted 15 goals in helping the Canaries to win the Championship title.
Norwich’s current star man had incredibly matched that goal tally by the end of November and still leads the division’s scoring chart – he netted hat-tricks against both Derby County and Plymouth Argyle and also became the first player ever to win successive Championship player of the month awards, in September and October.
“This has been my best year in football,” Sainz said, in an exclusive interview that you can read in the new issue of FourFourTwo magazine, out now.
Richard Kone has been voted as the best player in League One, after a remarkable rise for the Wycombe Wanderers forward.
The 21-year-old became a professional footballer only 15 months ago – in the little time since joining Wycombe from Athletic Newham in the ninth tier of English football, he’s topped the League One scoring chart with 18 goals this season, driven the Chairboys to a surprise automatic promotion tilt and reportedly attracted a £7m bid from his former boss, Matt Bloomfield, at Luton.
Dan Crowley has been voted as the best player in League Two, after his fine form in midfield for Notts County and MK Dons this season – the former Arsenal youngster started the campaign at Meadow Lane, before switching clubs for an undisclosed fee during the January transfer window.
You can see our full list of the top 50 players in the EFL in FourFourTwo magazine, on sale now.
