Time to check in on the offseason. Football oxygen has been consumed by the World Cup, and the transfer season has not been slow necessarily, but has moved at a jog more than a sprint. But things are happening.
EFL transfer window
Bristol City are moving fast and with purpose. Their offseason started with the signing of Michael Skubala on a three-year deal. When Skubala wrote in Coaches’ Voice about why he joined Lincoln City in 2024, he talked about truly believing in the vision for the club and the structure behind it. The same belief can be transferred to Bristol City, which has been not quite knocking on the door for a few seasons now, but threatening to knock on the door (a season away from being a few seasons away).
That promise is coming due, and to give the club credit, they’ve started to build around Skubala, fast. Three signings in, and the shape of what they’re trying to do is already legible.
They’ve hit refresh at ‘keeper, bringing in Sam Tickle from Wigan Athletic. Tickle has 158 senior starts and 54 clean sheets, big numbers for a 23-year old, and should start in goal.
Image courtesy of Bristol City F.C. bcfc.co.uk
Gibson Yah was signed last week, a tall defensive midfielder from the Dutch football pyramid with an Ajax academy pedigree. Yah is 23, physically imposing, and built for the kind of game Skubala wants to play: he wins the ball, plays with strong control, and allows you to play vertically.
He’s not going to flood forward and be a goalscoring threat, but that’s not what he’s been recruited for. For a team that will presumably want to press hard and be direct in attack, the base of midfield needs to be someone who can absorb pressure and distribute cleanly. Yah fits that description, with upside and development opportunity.
Sam Greenwood is the third signing, and this might be the most interesting of the three. Greenwood is 24, and for almost half a decade now, he’s had the feeling of a promising career that’s stalled. He was an England youth international through his late teenage years, then made a big arrival for Leeds in late 2022 with a goal in a Premier League win over Bournemouth that really felt like the start of something. But that hasn’t really materialized, and after a couple of loans then a permanent transfer to Pogon Szczecin last year, it seemed like the end of his journey in England.
But all of a sudden, he’s back, and specifically, he’s back with Skubala, who has worked with him previously during their time at Leeds. So this doesn’t feel like a punt on potential from Bristol City, but rather a calculated move for someone whom Skubala is very familiar with.
This brings us back to Skubala himself, and while I will talk more about Bristol City as we get closer to the season, his appointment to be particularly interesting to me this offseason. He’s got an unusual CV for a Championship manager. It reads kind of like an adjunct professor’s resumé; Director of Football at a university, head coach of the England national futsal team, some time at UEFA, some youth roles. He had other offers on the table when he took the role at Lincoln City in 2024, but he took it because he felt the club had a clear vision and stability. Those words can obviously feel empty, but in the case of the Imps, he was right.
And so Skubala comes across as a guy who isn’t necessarily chasing the highest rung available, but is more looking for the right environment, regardless of what role that may be or what setting that may be in. So, maybe there’s something happening in Bristol, where the club has felt at times like it’s been drifting, but now may be starting to put things together.
Some other transfer bits and bobs:
- Paul Mullin has left Wrexham. He’s obviously a huge name for the club and was a massive part of their meteoric rise out of the National League and the accompanying documentary, and Wrexham treated their parting ways accordingly. Where he lands next is anyone’s guess.
- Vitor Matos and Swansea are getting close to signing Matos’ former disciple Moussa Yeo, from RB Salzburg. (Yeo worked with Matos at Salzburg two years ago.)
- Lincoln City have signed former Derby left-back Callum Elder, their first signing since being promoted to the Championship.
- Sam Field has signed on permanently at Norwich after a successful loan from QPR in the back half of last season.
- David Watson and Ben Davies were signed by newly promoted Bolton.
- 22-year old forward Tairyk Arconte was signed by Milwall from French Ligue 2 club Rodez AF, where he scored 14 goals last season.
Plenty more rumors and questions remain, including what Middlesbrough plan to do after selling Hayden Hackney; the chase for Filip Luberecki by both Norwich City and QPR; and Wrexham and Birmingham City’s plans to retool and go again.
Schedule release
I’m not a huge “schedule release guy” in a sport where you are going to play every team twice, but a few thoughts after the EFL published it on Thursday.
- Week 1 kicks off on Friday night with Wolves vs Rovers, and am I crazy to think Tony Mowbray’s boys have a shot there? Some offseason turmoil at Wolves, combined with the surety that Mowbray will provide Blackburn (at least to begin with)…stranger things have happened.
- Other “big” (for TV) games Week 1 are West Ham vs Burnley on Sunday and Cardiff City home for a derby-ish of sorts with Welsh “neighbours” Wrexham. But give me ‘Borough home to the Imps, where the Smoggies will be keen to move on from the will-they won’t-they they’re out they’re in ending to last season, and Lincoln City will be looking to impress in their first Championship game in 65 years.
- They didn’t open week 1 with a derby, but they’re thick on the ground this year:
- Black Country Derby — Sep. 19 (at Wolves, Molineux) and Feb. 20 (at West Brom, The Hawthorns)
- East Lancashire Derby — Nov 21 (at Burnley, Turf Moor) and Feb 6 (at Blackburn, Ewood Park)
- Dockers Derby — Sep 19 (at Milwall, The Den) and Feb 20 (at West Ham, London Stadium)
So September 19 is a big derby day, while the return legs come at a time when things will be heating up at both ends of the table.
The rest
Emptying out the notebook with a couple of other thoughts:
- Burnley has still failed to land a manager, and the offseason is really starting to crack on. We’re six weeks away from the season. First came the cluster with Craig Bellamy, now Rob Edwards has apparently turned them down. Can someone just call Sean Dyche and get this over with?
- Underdogs in the World Cup — Cape Verde is the obvious one to heap praise on, but we’ve also seen a great run from home nation Canada, led by Southampton’s Cyle Larin up front. But outside of Japan, who came unstuck late against Brazil and are now out of the tournament, no minnows have looked like they’ve got the capacity to make a deep run. Maybe someone will surprise us.
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