Lincoln City have made some outstanding signings since returning to the EFL in 2017, but which deserve to be remembered as our best?
Transfers generate more interest than almost anything else in football, with a potential new signing often getting people talking more than the players already wearing the shirt. There’s always the hope that the next arrival will solve a problem, become a favourite or give us something we’ve been missing. Get recruitment right over a sustained period, and it can make not just a manager’s reputation, but an entire era for a club, while getting it wrong can undo years of good work.
Across two articles, we’re counting down our 20 best permanent signings of the EFL era, considering everything from their impact on the pitch and contribution to successful seasons to their longevity and any profit they generated. A free transfer who became central to a promotion campaign has as much claim to a place as a player whose eventual sale helped fund our next step forward. There’s no exact calculation for this, and you’ll doubtless disagree with some of the choices, but we begin with the players ranked 20 to 11.
To make it a little more challenging, I’ll only include members of the current squad with more than 18 months at the club: so no Adam Reach, Ivan Varfolomeev or Sonny Bradley on the list.
20 – Ethan Erhahon
St Mirren had given Ethan Erhahon his senior breakthrough and nearly 100 league appearances before we brought him south for an undisclosed fee, believed to be around £225,000 in January 2023. The midfielder went on to make 107 appearances for City, collecting the Players’ Player of the Season award in 2023/24. Bolton Wanderers paid an undisclosed fee, believed to total £750,000 to take him to Lancashire in July 2025, handing him a four-year contract, and he helped them win promotion through the League One play-offs in his first season.
We’re starting on a bit of a downer here, because it was felt we’d get over £1,000,000 for Erhahon, a player who at times made the game look very easy. He’s Championship quality; he’s proven that by playing regularly for Bolton this season, but something clearly wasn’t right at the end of his Lincoln City career. He had impact, he turned a profit, and we did well to lure him down here, but he really shouldn’t be 20th on this list after the first 18 months of his Lincoln City career.
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