The 20 best players outside the Premier League

“There are a lot of good footballers at this level now, more so than 10 or 20 years ago. The foreigners coming into the Premier League have pushed a lot of players down, and there are also a lot of young players coming through who have been well schooled in the academies. There are even plenty of good players in non-league.” The speaker was Mark Stimson, manager of Gillingham, but the sentiments were echoed by many of the managers and other experts The Independent spoke to when canvassing opinion for this fourth survey of the best players outside the top flight.

Once again the majority hail from the British Isles, players who, a decade ago, would have been fixtures in the elite league. Many will go on to be so. Sixteen of the 20 players named in each of the first two polls, in 2006, and 2007, went on to play in the top flight. Last season there was a feeling that the talent was not there. As a consequence we widened the survey to include the SPL, then riding high on the back of Celtic and Rangers’ European campaigns and a resurgent national team. Rangers’ Alan Hutton, who moved to Spurs soon after publication for £7m, came top. He, though, has struggled at White Hart Lane, largely, but not solely, through injury.

In that he is an apt metaphor for the Tartan game whose past buoyancy now appears to be something of a blip. So, conversely, was the apparent dearth of talent in the Championship. The league now seems to be flourishing again, with good football being played even by the struggling teams. Nottingham Forest’s Lewis McGugan claims a place in our top 20 and Doncaster (Brian Stock, Richie Wellens, James Coppinger) and Southampton (Andrew Surman, Adam Lallana) were close to being represented. The success of Hull and, to an extent, Stoke and West Bromwich in the top flight seems to confirm that the division’s quality last season was greater than appreciated at the time.

Related articles

• Previous surveys of the best players outside the Premier League
• Glenn Moore's response to readers

Thus we have returned to selecting only the best of the Football League system. Michael Kightly, second to Hutton last year, is now top. He is one of five Wolves players selected, reflecting their impressive first half of the season. Second-placed Reading have four representatives but Birmingham, the other front-runner, just James McFadden, and he is not considered to be performing at his best.

Kightly was discovered in non-League. So was the outstanding player in League One, Peterborough’s Craig Mackail-Smith, and one of the leading trio in League Two, Simeon Jackson of Gillingham. These selections give further credence to Stimson’s suggestion that the talent pool now extends to the Conference. The greater depth of talent has also led to more teams playing purer football. Gavin Strachan, of Notts County, writes in his BBC blog this week that pitches have improved during his dozen years in the game. His reasoning is that clubs are making that investment because more managers want to play a passing game.

Oddly, there are several full-backs but an absence of centre-halves. If a best XI were selected the choice would be between Wolves’ Richard Stearman, Cardiff’s Roger Johnson and Scott Dann of Coventry. There is a surfeit of wingers, including half the top 10. It is an indication of the attacking football being played by many of the leading teams in a division which, once again, has a confidence about itself.

Who we spoke to:

Players, managers, pundits and fans with an emphasis on people involved in, or observing, the Championship. Current players and managers were guaranteed anonymity. Only players under 30 on New Year’s Day 2009 were considered. Players on loan from Premier League not included. Nearly 100 names were mentioned, but the top five stood out.