The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Newcastle & Man City youngsters among this week's brightest starsplaceholder image
The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Newcastle & Man City youngsters among this week's brightest stars | Getty Images/Iconic Media Group
Counting down the 10 best young players in the Premier League right now - as Newcastle, Manchester City and West Ham starlets make their mark this week.
Another week of Premier League and FA Cup football is in the books, and that means that’s time for our journalists to comb through the stats, watch the tape and come to an agreement on a fresh edition of the Wonderkid Power Rankings – our countdown of the best young players in England right now.
Last week, Newcastle’s Lewis Miley made it two weeks at the top after a quite brilliant performance against Crystal Palace, but can he make it a hat-trick amid pressure from a number of in-form Under-21s?
We’ll find out below, but firstly we always like to start by giving a nod to the players who are losing their spot in our Top 10 this week, and this time it’s Bournemouth’s Álex Jiménez and Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly who simply didn’t do enough to keep their places – which leaves space for a Manchester City player to reclaim his place and for a brand new entry…
10. Abdukodir Khusanov – Manchester City (re-entry)
Pep Guardiola doesn’t seem to completely trust Khusanov, but we’d be lying if we said we fully understood why – back in the team thanks to recent injuries elsewhere, Uzbekistan’s finest footballing export was excellent against Brighton (making every tackle and winning every one-on-one duel he went in for) and against Exeter City in that remarkable 10-1 thrashing in the FA Cup. Confident on the ball and seldom willing to let anything get past him, he certainly looks more like a right-back that Mateus Nunes to us.
9. Ayden Heaven – Manchester United (⬇️2)
If you took Heaven’s two worst moments from the 2-2 draw against Burnley out of the equation, you would conclude that he’d had another pretty good game. The problem is that those moments consisted of a bad miss at one end and an own goal at the other. In between that he turned the ball over seven times, looked typically comfortable on the ball and was generally solid enough defensively, but it’s hard not to knock him down a couple of pegs regardless. Heaven was rested in the FA Cup, bringing a run of eight consecutive starts to an end, and he’s been mostly excellent over the course of that run.
8. Mateus Mané – Wolverhampton Wanderers (new entry)
The England Under-18 international has exploded onto the Premier League scene over the past couple of weeks, following up a goal against West Ham with a superb strike against Everton – from the way he took an awkward ball into his stride to his composed curling finish, he looked like he’d been doing it for a decade rather than all of five minutes. Several other Premier League sides are now said to be sniffing around the youngster this January, and a lively second-half cameo against Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup won’t have done his stock any harm.
7. Eli Junior Kroupi – Bournemouth (⬆️2)
Kroupi made it two goals in two games when he tucked in from close range to put Bournemouth 2-1 up against Tottenham Hotspur last Wednesday, enough to move him up the ladder despite a more difficult day in the FA Cup against Newcastle – when he spurned a few decent chances before being taken off ahead of extra time. In fairness, he still looked lively and created several headaches for the Magpies’ back line, he just wasn’t able to apply the finishing touch for the third game in a row.
6. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (⬇️2)
Speaking of players who weren’t at their best in that particular cup tie, Hall had a couple of dicey moments defensively against Bournemouth, which was also the case during the barnstorming 4-3 win over Leeds a few days earlier. In both matches, he made mistakes which led to shooting chances and found himself beaten by wingers on the run on multiple occasions – but there was at least plenty of good work going forward and he created a couple of excellent chances on the overlap against the Cherries. A mixed bag after a fine run of form.
5. Adam Wharton – Crystal Palace (⬇️2)
On the one hand, Wharton was typically impressive against Aston Villa in the league last week. Energetic and impactful out of possession and dynamic with the ball – creating one of Crystal Palace’s best chances with a superb instinctive through-ball for Brennan Johnson – the game may have wound up as a dreary 0-0 draw but Wharton was at his best. The same can’t, sadly, be said for what happened at the weekend.
Like most of his team-mates, Wharton was dreadful against Macclesfield Town and has to take his share of the responsibility for what was, by league position at least, the biggest upset in the FA Cup’s extremely long history. More than a quarter of his touches resulted in the ball going straight to the opposition, his passing was out of sorts, and he made an amazing number of defensive mistakes. That’s why Wharton ends up clinging on to a top five spot despite a fine recent run of form.
4. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (⬆️2)
It’s almost hard to know how much credit to give any given Manchester City player for their role in their absurdist deconstruction of a bewildered and bedraggled Exeter side, but O’Reilly, who played the whole of the second half, was perfect at the back, almost statistically perfect throughout the game bar a couple of missed passes, and scored the eighth goal with an impressive header. That deserves credit to some extent.
And while the 20-year-old was only on the pitch for about 20 minutes in the game against Brighton which preceded that FA Cup demolition, he still had time to force three turnovers and do some good defensive work there, too. A fine week, all told, even if he wasn’t a starter in either game.
3. Michael Kayode – Brentford (⬆️2)
Speaking of full-backs who did a surprising amount of work in a short space of time, Kayode came on in the 90th minute of the FA Cup game against Sheffield Wednesday and still found time to win two one-on-one duels and force a turnover with an interception – but he really moves up our rankings for his work against Sunderland.
The Italian was excellent as Keith Andrews’ side thumped Sunderland 3-0 and put in all but impeccable performance at the back, dealing with almost everything thrown at him in comfortable fashion while effectively supporting the attack with his runs, crosses and smart movement. An excellent performance by an excellent all-round right-back with very few weaknesses to his game.
2. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United (-)
The answer to the question ‘when was the last time Fernandes had a bad match?’ is much the same as ‘when was the last time that West Ham won a league game?’ at this point – it’s gone beyond the span most peoples’ memories, and is now known solely as an event handed down in folk stories. As bad as West Ham seem to be these days, Fernandes just keeps plugging away, being exceptional and a mile ahead of his team-mates week after week.
Given a well-deserved rest against QPR in the cup, Fernandes was as near-faultless as ever in the defeat to Nottingham Forest in midweek: He won every single one-on-one in and out of possession, recovered the ball six times, did some excellent covering work in defence and scarcely mislaid the ball when taking it forward. If only anyone else in claret and blue could live up to the standards the young Portuguese midfielder keeps setting. Not just a very good player on a bad team, but an amazingly consistent player at his age.
1. Lewis Miley – Newcastle United (-)
Miley makes it three in a row at the top of our little table, and could scarcely deserve it much more. His statistical output against Leeds in that ding-dong match last week was enough to cement his place at the top on its own: Seven clearances, four tackles, one blocked shot, three recoveries, two interceptions and all but one of his one-on-one duels won. Oh, and 97% pass completion and one very good chance created. It was the definitive all-action performance from an all-action midfielder who has blossomed beautifully over the last couple of months.
He wasn’t too shabby against Bournemouth either, a game in which he came played for about 50 minutes after coming on as a substitute, did a ton of strong defensive work and even if he didn’t make as much of a dent in the final third, he did score one of the penalties to help win the eventual shootout. Whenever you watch Newcastle these days, Miley seems to be absolutely everywhere, and you have to keep watching for a while before you’ll see him put a foot wrong.
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