Arsenal
A list that allows one name per club is a choice, not a ranking. The club that already has a 16-year-old in the first team does not have to introduce him.
Records fall in a season like that. The harder part is the next one, when the minutes have to be chosen rather than celebrated.
Managing a breakthrough is the sentence clubs write when they are trying not to break the player.
The Guardian’s Next Generation 2026 picks Max Dowman as Arsenal’s name among 20 Premier League talents, one from each club. Ed Aarons calls him one of the most exciting talents ever to emerge from a Premier League academy. He does not need an introduction. He needs a plan.
He became the first 15-year-old to appear in the Champions League last November, then the youngest player to score a Premier League goal, against Everton in March.
This season two goals against Ipswich in the League Cup made him the first 16-year-old to do that for a Premier League club since Wayne Rooney. Mikel Arteta said: “Unbelievable, he’s unpredictable, he can go either way, so fluid, so nice to watch.”
Arsenal are determined to manage that carefully. The decision not to sign another forward in the summer was taken with his opportunities in mind. He turns 17 on 31 December, the first date he can sign a professional contract or go out on loan. More than a dozen clubs have already asked. West Ham have been floated. Jarrod Bowen is why that one does not offer the starts Arteta would want.
This break he scored the winner for England Under-19s against the Republic of Ireland and came on to see out a win over Norway. He is not in EA Sports FC 27. Players under 17 cannot be licensed until they have a professional deal. A January update is the earliest a rating can exist.
The rest of the Guardian list is other clubs’ scholars. Chelsea’s Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli, 16, was given a pre-season cameo by Xabi Alonso. Brighton’s Charlie Wilson-Papps is an Australia Under-17 goalkeeper.
None of them have a Premier League goal. Dowman has the records and the instruction to be handled. The summer window left a gap for him on purpose. The hamstring list in the senior squad, Tzolis and Havertz both out, is the kind of gap that tests whether that promise holds on Saturday.