Ranking the best young players in the Premier League - with Manchester United, Chelsea and Sunderland stars starting the season strong.
Premier League football is back – and with it, the return of 3 Added Minutes’ Wonderkid Power Rankings, our weekly attempt to rank the very best young players in the top flight based on form and performances at the very highest level.
Every week, we’ll watch every match, comb through the stats and throw in a dash of our writers’ opinions to produce our Top 10. Only players who are 21 or younger are eligible for the Power Rankings, so spare a thought for poor Rayan Cherki, who scored on his Manchester City debut on Saturday but then turned 22 the very next day, meaning he’ll never take his place in our countdowns. He’s probably gutted.
Our eventual overall number one for the 2024/25 season, Dean Huijsen, isn’t around anymore but plenty of the regular contenders for top spot are still eligible, including Myles Lewis-Skelly, Lewis Hall, Milos Kerkez and Rico Lewis. Will they dominate our Top 10s in 2025/26, or will new stars emerge this season? Let’s dive into our very first countdown of the campaign and start to find out…
10. Carlos Baleba – Brighton & Hove Albion
Rumours of £100m-plus interest from Manchester United don’t seem to have affected Baleba’s on-field performances too much, judging by a typically energetic display in Brighton’s 1-1 draw with Fulham. This wasn’t the young Cameroonian at his very best, but he still hassled, harried, forced turnovers, protected the ball well and showed off some of his incisive passing on the occasions he was allowed to get the ball down and play. Not a game which will have added any extra zeroes to his asking price, perhaps, but neither will Ruben Amorim be any less keen to add him to the United squad if he can.
9. Lucas Bergvall – Tottenham Hotspur
The tidy Swedish midfielder was a pretty regular presence in the bottom half of our rankings last season and he’s back in a familiar sort of position to start the new season. Bergvall looked sharp from the first whistle in the 3-0 win over Burnley, with a neat first touch and turn allowing him to force Martin Dúbravka into a sharp near-post save in the very first minute, and while that was his only contribution in the final third he was still combative in midfield and very effective off the ball. Another rock solid day for the 19-year-old.
8. Leny Yoro – Manchester United
Yoro had a tough start to life at Old Trafford, hobbled by injury, weighted down by the pressure of a massive transfer fee, and thrown into one of the worst United teams in living memory – but he started to look very solid towards the end of 2024/25 and continued that progress against Arsenal. Although he could stand to sharpen up in one-on-one situations and was beaten a few times, his positioning was excellent, he was dominant in the air and looked comfortable on the ball. A promising performance.
7. Adam Wharton – Crystal Palace
This wasn’t Wharton at his absolute best, not least because he’s normally slightly more effective out of possession and only one two of his seven ground duels against Chelsea, but there were plenty of those touches of innate class that we’ve come to expect – not least when he turned three Chelsea defenders at once with a single touch, played a neat one-two and then slid Jean-Philippe Mateta in for perhaps Crystal Palace’s best chance with a gorgeous through ball. Wharton may not top our charts every week, but few youngsters in the Premier League are capable of playing better football.
6. Patrick Dorgu – Manchester United
Yoro might have taken some time to settle in last season, but January signing Dorgu looked sharp from the very start – and he was excellent in defence and attack against Arsenal. Not only did he come as close as anyone to scoring for United when he drilled an angled long-range effort against the post, but he created a fine chance for Bryan Mbeumo with a cross, didn’t miss a tackle, kept Bukayo Saka quiet for long periods and drew several fouls when surging forward. Another good outing for a player who looks like one of Ineos’ best buys so far.
5. Noah Sadiki – Sunderland
One of Sunderland’s many, many summer signings, the 20-year-old Congolese international is a utility player who probably wasn’t familiar to many Premier League fans despite some fine work in Belgium with Union Saint-Gilloise – but he’ll have earned plenty of attention with a lively and involved performance in the fairy tale win over West Ham.
Deployed as a ball-winning midfielder on the left of a midfield three, Sadiki seemed to be just about everywhere and handled the theoretically dangerous combination of Jarrod Bowen and Aaron Wan-Bissaka very well, shutting down numerous promising moves, defending sternly one-on-one, and getting the ball downfield quickly and efficiently when he won it. In essence, Sadiki played the Baleba role, and did it very well indeed.
4. Yasin Ayari – Brighton & Hove Albion
The Swedish midfielder demonstrated an impressive growth curve last season, developing from a technician with a neat passing range into a genuine all-rounder who became far stronger on the ball, much tougher in tight corners and more effective in his defensive duties. Judging by his performance against Fulham, he hasn’t forgotten anything that he learned.
A dynamic presence on the ball who hardly ever lost possession, teed off several promising moves and drew four fouls from Fulham defenders who struggled to deal with him one-on-one, Ayari was also determined and effective off the ball, winning five of his seven ground duels and generating three turnovers. There were no goals or assists on this occasion, but he was at the heart of most of Brighton’s best play.
3. Josh Acheampong – Chelsea
Injuries to Levi Colwill and Tosin Adarabioyo saw the 19-year-old handed just his third league start for Chelsea, and despite a nervy moment early on when he contrived to pass the ball straight to Eberechi Eze (sparking a move which led to his disallowed goal) he eventually settled in and put in a performance which justified Enzo Maresca’s faith in him.
Tested seemingly endlessly – Palace may well have been consciously targeting him – Acheampong kept his nerve, dominated in one-on-one situations, showed impressive positional nous and was rock solid in possession, completing 87 of his 93 attempted passes. You wouldn’t have known that he was as inexperienced as he is, and he might just have made it a little easier for Maresca to stomach the likelihood that he won’t be getting a new defender this transfer window.
2. Eliezer Mayenda – Sunderland
If this ranking was decided purely by weight of vibes, or solely by single moments, Mayenda would have been number one by a country mile. It was his superb header that set Sunderland on their way to the most memorable (and surely loudest) win of the weekend, and his goal that made him the one player on this list to produce a moment that nobody present will ever forget.
There are some statistical reasons to keep him off top spot, sadly, not least that he only managed one shot on target and one completed pass all game (a good pass, mind you, a sharp one-two which put Habib Diarra in at the near post) and he didn’t manage to get past West Ham defenders as frequently as he might have wanted when he got on the ball, but he took his one real chance supremely well. One shot on target, one goal, and 49,000 roaring Mackems the result.
1. Rico Lewis – Manchester City
Last season, we often quipped that Lewis seemed to have exactly the same game every week. Very few highlight reel moments but almost no mistakes, an endless succession of simple movements off the ball and inch-perfect passes which kept play ticking over with minimal fuss. Nothing much has changed, but this time the Manchester City man also popped up with a rare contribution in the final third.
It was Lewis whose sharp run gave Tijjani Reijnders someone to dink the ball too after his own fine dribble, and Lewis’ pinpoint ball back across goal which gave Erling Haaland a tap-in. That was the Match of the Day moment, but he did all the boring stuff brilliantly too – he won every tackle, every one-on-one, completed 92% of his passes and barely gave the ball away. Hardly a foot wrong or a stud out of place for 66 minutes before being taken off, with a slice of quality in the penalty area as the cherry on top. That’s the stuff Wonderkid Power Rankings week one top spots are made of.
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