The Wonderkid Power Rankings: West Ham, Crystal Palace & Chelsea starlets on the upplaceholder image
The Wonderkid Power Rankings: West Ham, Crystal Palace & Chelsea starlets on the up | Getty Images/NationalWorld
Ranking the 10 best young players in the Premier League right now - with Chelsea, West Ham and Crystal Palace starlets impressing this week.
With another international break in the rear view mirror and some fresh Premier League action to pore over, we’re back with our latest edition of The Wonderkid Power Rankings – our regular ranking of the 10 best young players in the top flight right now based not on their potential, but on their performances at the very highest level.
Last time out, Brentford’s Michael Kayode extended his run at the summit – but will a 2-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion have hurt his cause enough to allow another of the best Under-21s in the land to sneak in and take top spot?
We’ve got just one player sliding out of our Top 10 this time around, following a week in which most of the youngsters pushing for a place failed to make their case – Burnley’s Lesley Ugochukwu falls away after a quiet day against his former club Chelsea, to be replaced by one of his on-the-day opponents who made rather more of an impact. Let’s get on with it…
10. Eli Junior Kroupi – Bournemouth (-)
Ordinarily, a striker who missed a chance as glaring as Kroupi’s sitter in the 78th minute against West Ham would be on their way out of our rankings – but while he certainly should have buried that one and likely won the game for Bournemouth as a result, the 19-year-old earned enough credit earned elsewhere for us to leave him at number 10 for another week.
He may have misfired when his chance came, but he was clever off the ball, slipping into spaces other forwards may have missed, and worked his socks off when out of possession, with a massive seven turnovers forced and two tackles made. That’s a very high number of defensive contributions for a forward.
9. Alejandro Garnacho – Chelsea (⬇️3)
Garnacho’s reward for a fine run of form in which the goals and assists had been flowing freely was a place on the bench against Burnley – a victim of Chelsea’s rotational system this week, we have little choice but to knock the Argentine down a peg (or three) this week. It’s hard for us to fairly say that a player is on form when they didn’t even play.
8. Estevão Willian – Chelsea (⬇️3)
And it’s exactly the same story for Garnacho’s team-mate, who scored in back-to-back games for Brazil over the international break but didn’t get a single minute of pitch time for this weekend. We don’t consider international games for these rankings – we tried it in the past and the fact that some players would be involved and others left with their feet up kept sending things askew – so Estevão finds himself on the slide as well. It’s a cruel world.
7. Jamie Gittens – Chelsea (re-entry)
A rather strange Chelsea hat-trick in the bottom half of our table is completed by Gittens, who dropped out of the Top 10 just before the break but came back with a bang against Burnley, setting up a goal for Pedro Neto with a perfectly-weighted cross and working hard pressing, tracking back and forcing Burnley into giving the ball back. A good game for Gittens, which will likely now result in him spending a couple of games on the bench, based on Enzo Maresca’s usual methods.
6. Yankuba Minteh – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬆️2)
Minteh has been wildly inconsistent of late but was somewhere near his best against Brentford this weekend – impactful on and off the ball, he hassled and harried Brentford’s players when he didn’t have the ball and created a string of opportunities when he did, getting an assist for Brighton’s equaliser thanks to a superb cross into the path of Danny Welbeck. A first rate outing for the Gambian winger.
5. Adam Wharton – Crystal Palace (⬆️2)
Minteh may have been much better this week, but he was probably beaten to being able to claim the best performance by a member of our Top 10 this week by Wharton, who was imperious in Crystal Palace’s deserved win away to Wolves – perhaps inspired by his England recall, this was the 21-year-old’s best outing in the Premier League for many weeks.
Heavily involved throughout, Wharton gets the assist for Yeremy Pino’s brilliant second goal but it was his work off the ball which really impressed – he earned five recoveries of possession, made two tackles and intercepted two passes to shut down move after move and keep the Palace goal safe. Good in possession, dominant out of it, and our former number one is back in the top half.
4. Noah Sadiki – Sunderland (⬇️2)
The ever-industrious Sunderland midfielder can’t usually be accused of struggling to get involved in games, but he was relatively becalmed for once against Fulham – and while he didn’t do a great deal wrong, he wasn’t able to impose himself on the opposing team in the way that he so often does.
The Congolese international only forced one turnover and touched the ball just 38 times, which by his high standards represents a pretty tame statistical return, although there was a goal-line clearance thrown in for the highlight reel. Not a bad outing, by any means, and it’s perhaps harsh to have him drop a couple of places, but Sadiki was outdone by others in the top five this week.
3. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (-)
Manchester City didn’t have their best day at St. James’ Park on Saturday, but it would be unfair to lay any of the blame for that at O’Reilly’s feet – the young England left-back had another very decent game, carrying the ball nicely, passing it well and ultimately holding up well enough at the back. Newcastle had plenty of chances, but O’Reilly wasn’t at fault for any of them.
Going forward he also created one of the several good opportunities spurned by Erling Haaland with a good run and an accurate cut-back into the Norwegian’s path, and was perhaps one of City’s better performers on a bad day.
2. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United (⬆️2)
There’s still a lot of criticism that can be very fairly aimed at the way that West Ham are playing, but we continue to be deeply impressed by Fernandes, who was probably the Hammers’ best player yet again this weekend.
He didn’t create any shooting chances this time around, although he was perfectly tidy in possession, but his work rate off the ball was through the roof – the Portuguese midfielder forced a massive seven turnovers, blocked two potentially goal-bound shots and made a couple of tackles and interceptions to go with it. Almost nothing got past him, and he played a huge role in earning West Ham a point that they probably didn’t deserve.
1. Michael Kayode – Brentford (-)
This wasn’t, by any means, Kayode’s best performance for Brentford. There were moments in which he was beaten one-on-one, for instance, and he only created one half-chance in the opposing half (a deep cross for Kevin Schade which probably lacked the pace to make it a really good opportunity on the header). Still, Kayode was certainly solid – and this was only a game which gently loosened his grip on top spot, rather than one which was worth taking it away from him for.
There was still a lot of good work in defence, he was dynamic with the ball at his feet and created plenty of space down the right flank, and even if he didn’t have as much of an impact on the opposition as normal, there was little to tut at – and with none of his immediate rivals making their case quite strongly enough this week, we’re keeping Kayode in place as the best young player in the Premier League right now.
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