Who could actually be signed in January?

Here's who pops up in the Cannon Stats crystal ball

Bukayo Saka is on ice for a long time, and it sucks. We’re probably looking at getting him back no sooner than late February at this rate, with availability for the round of 16 in the Champions League a genuine question.

We’ve always tackled the Saka backup/depth question pretty head-on here at Cannon Stats, but this is injury is only going to make the discussion louder and more told-you-so-coded, unfortunately. And that means, regardless of what the club was or was not planning to do next month or next summer, we’ve got to at least talk about it.

So, without further ado: Let’s talk about some actually realistic winger options as we look ahead to January. While everyone reading would love this list to go something like Leão, Kvaratskhelia, Bakayoko, Barcola, I’ve taken a completely different and, dare I say, novel approach: I identified 20 guys who could, maybe, sorta, actually be gotten mid-season. And while I did get to a full 20 for you, oh dear reader, even I feel like I’ve talked myself into at least a handful who are not *actually* gettable next month. But we’ll dive into that when we get there.

Other things to note include that this list, as I tend to do, is very much based on numbers. We can get more into the guys who don’t play much/haven’t played enough for a radar/have bad radars later in Attacker Month. It also very intentionally includes 9 left-footers and 11 right-footers (one was catalogued as a lefty who turned out to be righty, but I’d made the chart already. Sue me.). And while this isn’t necessarily in order, I’m going to start with the weaker shouts and end with the stronger ones. If your guy doesn’t show up below, feel free to ask in the comments or over on BlueSky, and I’ll do my best to explain why I didn’t include him.

Now, let’s go!