Arsenal, Newcastle and Bournemouth stars are near the top as we rank the ten best young players in the Premier League this season.
Every week this season, the writers at 3 Added Minutes have watched the games, pored over the stats and got round the table to discuss who we think the best and most in-form young players in the Premier League are – and the result has been the Wonderkid Power Rankings, tracking the ups and downs of the finest Under-21s in the top flight.
Now that we’ve reached the end of the season, however, it occurred to us that we ought to look back over the last year and put together a Top 10 for the entire season – deciding, once and for all, who the best young talents in the have been in the Premier League over the course of the entire season.
Any player who was 21 or younger at some point during the course of the campaign is eligible for this list (unlike our normal rankings when players age out) so we can celebrate all of the best players we watched – but we can’t help but be surprised at some of the players we ended up omitting.
If you’d told us this time last year that none of Kobbie Mainoo, Adam Wharton, Levi Colwill or Alejandro Garnacho would make the cut, we’d have laughed you out of the room – but all were outshone by their peers, most of whom seem to be left-backs for some reason. Anyway, enough pining for those who didn’t make it… these are the ten best youngsters we’ve seen all season long.
10. Carlos Baleba – Brighton & Hove Albion
Brighton players were a regular feature of our Top 10s this year, as you might expect for a side known for their youth development. All of them had their ups and downs, and Yankuba Minteh, Jack Hinshelwood and Yasin Ayari impressed in places, but overall we reckon Baleba was the pick of the bunch.
He had a few rough games, but his combination of tough tackling, defensive nous and increasingly dynamic playmaking ensured he had plenty of highlights as he develops into an impressive all-round midfielder – a long-range screamer against West Ham towards the end of the season being perhaps his most memorable moment. Quickly turning into a player that Chelsea will remortgage Stamford Bridge for.
9. Destiny Udogie – Tottenham Hotspur
It hasn’t been a brilliant season for Spurs, it’s fair to say, but Udogie – who aged out of our weekly rankings back in November – was impressive, and in particular improved his defensive skillset considerably over the course of a rough campaign.
The Italian made over 70% of his tackles, a huge uptick from previous years, and became a far more reliable figure at the back, even if his output in the final third did tail away slightly. Still on track to be a key player for his club for years to come, whichever end of the table they’re competing at.
8. Mateus Fernandes – Southampton
If it was a bad season for Spurs, it was even worse for Southampton, who only narrowly avoided becoming the worst team ever to compete in the Premier League – but there was one silver lining to the colossal cloud that loomed over St. Mary’s for the whole year, and that was Fernandes.
The Portuguese summer signing quietly went about the business of becoming a hugely effective box-to-box midfielder, out-working his team-mates off the ball and often proving to be the Saints’ only serious creative threat when he was on it. Tyler Dibling was the young Southampton player dominating the gossip columns, but it was Fernandes who showed us more on the field of play.
7. Liam Delap – Ipswich Town
How much higher Delap might have been had he received better service from an Ipswich side that struggled to create chances for their star striker – and their chances of avoiding relegation would have been rather better, too. As it was, Delap probably didn’t score as many goals as his lethal play deserved.
Dangerously quick, superb at separating from defenders and with a knack for placing his shots into parts of the goal that the ‘keeper couldn’t reach, Delap’s highlight reel was cut short because his team-mates couldn’t get him the ball often enough. Still, based on the transfer frenzy surrounding his £30m release clause, the top flight’s biggest teams saw enough to work out what he’s capable of.
6. Rico Lewis – Manchester City
Lewis was one of the dominant forces in our weekly rankings for the first half of the season, and arguably one of the most consistent players in the entire league regardless of age – he passed, moved, kept play ticking economically and unfussily and almost never gave the ball away or let anything slip past him.
A stumble through the spring saw his stock and gametime tumble a little, but as the season neared its close we started to see him back to his dependable best. Not a showy player, one who almost never shows up on the highlights shows, but one who does his job in a clever, simple way that kept possession ticking over even when Manchester City hit the rocks in the autumn.
5. Jhon Durán – Aston Villa
The Colombian striker ended up having one of the strangest seasons in recent memory – almost never started a game, scored a bunch of brilliant and important goals anyway, sold in January. But despite only spending half of the year in the Premier League, he was such a regular Wonderkid Power Rankings number one for the first months of the season that a high ranking is only fair.
Whether it was scoring the winner against Bayern Munich or an absolute screamer against Everton, Durán packed more brilliance into fewer minutes than any youngster we can remember watching for years, and it’s a shame that we didn’t get to see more of him. His final accounting in the top flight for Villa? Seven starts, 12 goals, and a profit for the club of over £40m.
4. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal
Had Lewis-Skelly broken into the Gunners’ first team earlier in the season, he probably would have finished even higher, and he was arguably their best player over the course of the second half of the season, demonstrating both dynamic ball-carrying skills and mature decision-making.
Most youngsters coming into the first team are guilty of overplaying or making rash errors of judgement but Lewis-Skelly always seemed to know when to pass, when to dribble, when to lunge in and when to stay on his feet. A teenager who played like a seasoned pro, and great value for his first England caps. If we were to guess next year’s number one, we’d make the Arsenal man the favourite.
3. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth
From start to finish, the Hungarian left back never seemed to stop developing into a better and more consistent player. At the end of last year, his defensive game, in particular, had some clear holes, but 12 months later he’s become one of the toughest full-backs to beat in the game.
Exceptional one-on-one and demonstrating pinpoint positional awareness, Kerkez is also a genuine attacking threat and brilliant at finding space for a cross or teeing up counter-attacks with his rapidly-widening passing range. Kerkez has gone from a promising player to an excellent one since August.
2. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United
Through the winter, Hall dominated our weekly leaderboard, and he was pretty much an ever-present in the Top 10 right the way through to the moment that a foot injury ended his season back in March – but he’d already demonstrated that he was perhaps the most exciting of the many superb young left-backs in the Premier League.
Although perhaps not as sturdy at the back as Kerkez or Lewis-Skelly, Hall was definitely the most dangerous in the final third. Lethal on the overlap, superb at getting half a yard on his opposite number and blessed with some of the most accurate crossing we’ve seen on Tyneside for some time, Hall already looks like one of the best attacking wing-backs in the division. If he can tighten up his defensive work, especially one-on-one, he could be a superstar.
1. Dean Huijsen – Bournemouth
Prior to December, Huijsen had barely played a minute for Bournemouth. Six months later, and he may be off to Real Madrid while half of Europe’s biggest teams throw £50m bids around for his services. Huijsen’s rise has been both meteoric and richly deserved.
In many ways, he reminds us of a less stocky version of Jarrad Branthwaite from last season – seemingly telepathic in his capacity to know where the final ball is going to end up, Huijsen was almost always positioned precisely where he needed to be to make the clearance and almost never missed a tackle. Where he betters Branthwaite, however, is in his comfort with the ball at his feet and his impressively precise long passing, making Huijsen a component of the attack as much as the defence. Just check out his assist for Lamine Yamal on his full debut for Spain.
Since establishing himself as a regular starter down in Dorset, the summer signing has spent more weeks at number one in our rankings than any other player, and has barely had a bad ten minutes, less still a bad game. A brilliant talent who seems set for a fast track to the very top, and for our money the best Under-21 in the Premier League this season.
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