Counting down the best young players in the Premier League as Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United starlets impress.
Every week, 3 Added Minutes pores over the tape, digs through that stats and adds a dash of our writers’ opinions to produce the Wonderkid Power Rankings – our countdown of the 10 best Under-21s in the Premier League based on their form at the very highest level.
The start of the season always does strange things to the rankings, if only because we have such a small sample size to work with – and it doesn’t help that nearly all of last week’s best performers had a pretty poor week, up to and including our first number one of the season, Rico Lewis.
All of those ups and downs mean we lose four of last week’s Top 10 already: Chelsea’s Josh Acheampong, who didn’t play against West Ham, Spurs’ Lucas Bergvall and Brighton’s Carlos Baleba and Yasin Ayari. And frankly, a few other players can consider themselves lucky that we didn’t decide to give Max Dowman a spot in the Top 10 in their stead for his brief but entertaining cameo against Leeds. Next week, perhaps…
10. Eliezer Mayenda – Sunderland (⬇️8)
The luckiest of those not to be bumped out of our Top 10 this week, Mayenda jump-started Sunderland’s season in scintillating fashion last weekend but came crashing back down to earth in week two, missing a sitter against Burnley when he half-heartedly scuffed a shot straight at Martin Dúbravka from five yards out. That was, more or less, his only contribution to the match at Turf Moor.
9. Patrick Dorgu – Manchester United (⬇️3)
Dorgu has been very impressive since signing for United in January and was one of the few players to come out of the back half of last season which much credit at Manchester United, but he had one of his worst matches yet during the 1-1 draw with Fulham. Unable to make much headway in the final third, he also won just two of his one-on-ones and lost the ball repeatedly. His mistakes didn’t prove costly in the end, but that was very much an off day for the Dane.
8. Marc Guiu – Sunderland (new entry)
While fellow Sunderland striker Mayenda struggled, it was a rather better week for Chelsea loanee Guiu, who came off the bench against Burnley but made more of a mark in the EFL Cup match against Huddersfield Town. After a bad first touch prevented him from putting away a presentable chance in the first half, he equalised with an excellent header towards the end of the match – a fine goal for a young forward, regardless of the opposition. Opposition, mind you, who went on to win on penalties. It’s not been a great week up on Wearside…
7. Noah Sadiki – Sunderland (⬇️2)
…A fact which extends to Sunderland’s third and final entry in this week’s countdown. The combative midfielder was rested for the rather humbling cup defeat to Huddersfield, so can’t take any of the blame there, but was merely decent at Burnley, forcing three turnovers but also losing out in exactly half of his one-on-one battles. Compared to his rather more dominant and energetic outing against West Ham on opening day, this one has to go down as a mild disappointment.
6. Rico Lewis – Manchester City (⬇️5)
It’s not often that a number one falls five whole places in a week, but the start of the season does some funny things to our countdown – and Lewis was uncharacteristically poor in the 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur. Not only did he struggle one-on-one and miss a few tackles, he lacked impact in the final third, was wasteful in possession (at least by his extremely high standards) and was arguably slow to react to the counter-attack which led to Spurs’ opener. Could he have got back to cut out the cross that Brennan Johnson slotted home so easily? Perhaps…
5. Rio Ngumoha – Liverpool (NE)
Normally, it takes rather more than a scoring cameo to crack our top five, but it’s hard not to factor in both Ngumoha’s hugely exciting pre-season form – he scored or set up goals in three consecutive matches before the season got started in earnest – and the importance of his late, late strike to seal a win at St. James’ Park.
The 16-year-old looked as composed as a 36-year-old when he calmly stepped on to Mohamed Salah’s cross and curled the ball with his instep past a stationary Nick Pope and perfectly into the side netting to seal a thrilling win over Newcastle United, and may well have earned himself some more minutes to show us what he can do. A very exciting talent indeed.
4. Estevão Willian – Chelsea (NE)
Another newcomer to our rankings, the prodigiously-gifted Brazilian was finding his feet against Crystal Palace last week but really started to show us what he was made of in the 5-1 thrashing at the London Stadium, with a number of nice touches and flowing, graceful runs with the ball at his feet – one of which led to a goal.
Gliding past two defenders with an effortless ease, he covered a lot of ground very quickly to get to the byline and play the ball back across goal for Enzo Fernández to score Chelsea’s third. He did, admittedly, miss a very presentable chance himself from near the penalty spot, but showed enough to suggest that Chelsea haven’t made any mistakes in signing this one of their many fresh faces.
3. Michael Kayode – Brentford (NE)
The right-back became a regular presence in our Top 10 towards the back end of last season and didn’t miss out by much last week despite Brentford looking extremely bad against Nottingham Forest – this week, Kayode makes it all the way up to third after being perhaps the best player on the pitch against Aston Villa.
The Italian 21-year-old shut almost everything that was thrown at him down, racking up five tackles, blocking no fewer than three shots, and even completing every pass as he made an outsized contribution towards a crucial clean sheet – and he didn’t put a foot wrong in his 30-minute appearance against Bournemouth in the EFL Cup either. A much better week for Brentford, and players like Kayode suggest that their post-Thomas Frank future may be pretty bright after all.
2. Leny Yoro – Manchester United (⬆️6)
If we’re being honest, our putting Yoro in second place largely reflects the fact that he was one of the very few Under-21s in the Premier League who managed to be good enough for the Top 10 last time out without promptly playing poorly a week or so later – and he was very solid indeed against Fulham.
He was much better at dealing with ball carriers this week and just as dominant in the air, and while his impressive passing range wasn’t necessarily used to full effect it was still a strong all-round defensive outing, and he even forced the own goal which gave United the lead as a cherry on top. A good day for a player with the pressure of a big transfer fee to pay back.
1. Adam Wharton – Crystal Palace (⬆️6)
We were amazed, looking back through our Power Rankings archives, to discover that we had never made Adam Wharton our number one. Until now, anyway.
The funny thing is that we wouldn’t necessarily say that Wharton was even at his very best in the games against Fredrikstad in the Europa Conference League or against Nottingham Forest – indeed, we’d even say that while his passing game was impeccable against Fredrikstad, is radar looked a little off against the weekend.
But Wharton picks up top spot because he has already found consistent quality this season, because he has a first touch and a degree of vision that few other players on any pitch he graces possess, and because he contributes so much off the ball, screening the defence and forcing turnovers in dangerous areas. There are simply always moments of glaringly obvious quality – and no other youngster has been as steady over the first few games of the season as he has. A deserved, if belated, elevation to top spot.
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