As is usual in pre-season I’ve been tracking how much each Premier League and EFL squad has changed since last season. This has now been updated following the close of the domestic transfer window on October 16th.

I’ve harvested the data from the official retained lists, the BBC transfer page, Transfermarkt and a variety of Twitter sources, so hopefully I haven’t missed anything. You can see the all the data I’ve compiled here along with a more detailed club-by-club breakdown – please let me know via Twitter if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

Explanation

There’s a brief explanation of how these work at the top of each graphic, but in summary I’ve plotted a donut chart for each club where every player’s league minutes from last season is a separate segment, ordered from largest to smallest. I’ve then shaded them dark if they’re still at the club and light if they’ve left, so you can see at a glance how regularly departing players featured last season.

Premier League

A pattern which persists over time is that the higher up you are in the pecking order, the less your squad tends to changes from season-to-season. This seems to make sense as the top clubs will have more control over which players depart and when. What it means in practice is that these graphics will get more varied the further you scroll down.

Most Premier League squads are largely unchanged, which is fairly normal, with Crystal Palace having not sold a single player who got minutes for them last season (just a couple of loanees departing). Brighton, Fulham and Wolves have had a bit of a reshuffle but their six most-used first team players from last term remain at the club.

Championship

 

Preston are once again the least-changed side in the second tier with only a few fringe players having departed. Wycombe look to be putting their faith in the players that got them promoted, while three of newly-relegated Bournemouth‘s four most-used players from last season have left.

League 1

 

It’s nice to have 24 clubs on this graphic again. Ipswich are the least-changed side with loanee Luke Garbutt the only member of last season’s most-used XI to have left. At the other end of the graphic, Wigan‘s precarious finances have seen most of their squad picked off by other clubs, while Lincoln and Blackpool in particular appear to have given the Etch-a-Sketch a good old shake. The Imps’ changes have been predominantly in defence, where young left-back Max Melbourne is the only remaining player who featured in the league last season.

League 2

Harrogate and Barrow seem to think that the squads that got them out of the National League will be good enough to keep them from an immediate return. Carlisle and Bolton clearly didn’t share their confidence and have opted for a complete overhaul – the Cumbrians are the only club in the top four divisions to have lost 10 of their 11 most-used players from last season. Port Vale are the only side in the bottom two divisions to have all of last term’s most-used XI still on their books.