The Wonderkid Power Rankings: West Ham & Man Utd youngsters among this week’s bestplaceholder image
The Wonderkid Power Rankings: West Ham & Man Utd youngsters among this week’s best | Getty Images
Ranking the best young players in the Premier League right now - with Manchester United, West Ham and Newcastle starlets in this week’s Top 10.
Another week of Premier League and Champions League action has been and gone, and that means that our journalists have once again combed through the stats and watched the tape to put together out weekly Top 10 of the best young players in the top flight right now.
Last week, it was West Ham’s remarkably consistent Mateus Fernandes who took the crown, holding on to top spot for a second consecutive week after his magnificent goal against Sunderland. But will he make it three weeks on the trot as our highest-rated under-21 in the Premier League?
We’ve got two players making way this week – Chelsea’s Estêvão Willian, last week’s number 10, is sadly away on compassionate leave at the moment, while Manchester United’s Patrick Dorgu drops out due to a serious ankle injury which will leave him sidelined for a while. That leaves space for one returning starlet and one player making his first appearance of the 2025/26 season.
10. Álex Jiménez – AFC Bournemouth (⬇️1)
The Spaniard was shoehorned into the right wing role once more against Wolves and largely made a decent fist of it, although it was noticeable that he was far more impactful when tracking back and operating in more familiar defensive territory. In the final third, the opposing defenders won most of the one-on-one battles and Jiménez’s passes tended to miss the mark. In the defensive third, the opposite was true. New signings like Rayan – who got our attention with a debut assist – should help Jiménez to settle back in at full-back before long.
9. Kobbie Mainoo – Manchester United (new entry)
A player with the raw talent of Mainoo simply shouldn’t be waiting six months to make his Wonderkid Power Rankings debut, but he simply wasn’t a great fit for what Ruben Amorim was trying to do. It’s a different story under Michael Carrick so far, however, and Mainoo has looked like a man reborn in the last few weeks – after bagging an assist against Arsenal he put in a lively, dynamic performance against Fulham, doing far better defensive work in a compact press and working the ball well when in possession, breaking the lines and keeping attacks ticking over.
8. Mateus Mané – Wolverhampton Wanderers (-)
Although Mané wasn’t able to reverse the course of Wolves’ 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday, he was arguably his side’s best player – his mazy, darting dribbles, in particular caused several significant headaches (and drew no fewer than four fouls) and his passing was intelligent and economical. Our only gripe with the teenager was his tendency to try too many optimistic long-range shots, four of them over the weekend without doing any damage.
7. Eli Kroupi Junior – AFC Bournemouth (re-entry)
Yet again, the Frenchman fell gently out of our rankings after failing to put a dent in the opposition for a couple of weeks on the bounce and then immediately forced his way back in with a timely goal – and this might well be his best yet for Bournemouth, an absolutely superb first touch followed by a dipping shot which fizzed just beneath the bar and in from the edge of the penalty area. A brilliant strike from a forward with wonderful finishing instincts who simply needs to find more ways to get involved in the game when he isn’t getting on the scoresheet.
6. Abdulkodir Khusanov – Manchester City (⬇️1)
We’re coming now to a run of players who might have lost more places in this week’s rankings had the gap between themselves and the chasing back been a little narrower. Khusanov, to his credit, did a lot of good defensive work against both Galatasaray and Tottenham Hotspur but also got caught completely cold by the darting Dominic Solanke run which resulted in the first of Spurs’ goals. Those positional lapses are what prevents Khusanov, a player with immense natural gifts, from being a truly first-rate defender just at the moment.
5. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (⬇️1)
Hall was an innocent bystander for all four of Liverpool’s goals against Newcastle this weekend and while he could be accused of selling himself a little too easily in his earnest effort to block Vitinha’s opening goal in their midweek Champions League match against PSG, Hall doesn’t really lose a place for his defensive work – it’s a bad week in the final third which has cost him.
At his best, Hall has already developed into one of the most dangerous overlapping full-backs in the Premier League but was largely ineffective in more advanced areas over the past week or so, getting into good areas but not delivering the goods – of the nine crosses he put into the box against Liverpool and PSG, not one found their target. It must also be added that while he wasn’t culpable for Newcastle’s dreadful weekend defeat, he also missed more attempted tackles than he made. Not Hall’s best week.
4. Lewis Miley – Newcastle United (⬇️2)
Miley has a ton of credit in the bank and was our number one not long ago, but endured a fairly nightmarish start to the week when he conceded a penalty against PSG with just a minute on the clock. The penalty was rather cruel given that it bounced up onto the makeshift right-back’s arm, and it was missed in any case, but it did perhaps set the tone given that he ended up on the bench against Liverpool.
Perhaps that was a mistake on Eddie Howe’s part given the final result, and in truth Miley put in a pretty respectable performance against PSG which, other than the unlucky handball which led to the penalty, was more or less error-free. Still, this wasn’t the best week Miley has had in black and white lately, and he slides slightly as a consequence.
3. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (-)
O’Reilly stays stock still in third this week, after another pair of matches in which we saw plenty of evidence of his many sterling qualities but also demonstrated his key weakness a little too often as well: O’Reilly really can struggle in one-on-one situations when quicker ball-carriers are coming at him.
Between the games against Galatasaray and Spurs, O’Reilly won just five of his 16 one-on-one duels and allowed wingers to get in behind him too easily, too often. Fortunately, he remains excellent at the things he is good at – he’s a superb passer, reliable in just about any defensive situation which doesn’t involve a winger sprinting directly at him, and his dynamic movement means he adds plenty to City’s attack. Not a bad week, by any means, just one which yet again showed us where the polish might need to be applied. He probably would have dropped a place or two most weeks, but those around him gave us more reason for a demotion in the end.
2. Michael Kayode – Brentford (⬆️4)
If we’re being honest, the thoroughly solid but not necessarily spectacular performance which Kayode put in against Aston Villa wasn’t necessarily the stuff that our number two slot should be made of, nor a four-place jump in the Top 10 – but the Italian is the beneficiary of a bad week for most of last week’s top five and was comfortably better than the players he leapfrogs since we last updated our rankings.
There’s no doubt that Kayode was mostly excellent at the back even if he did miss a couple of tackles – his seven forced turnovers and two interceptions attest to the fact that he had plenty of positive impact in defence, and he was certainly lively and involved going forward down the right flank even if he couldn’t find a telling final ball on this occasion. This was a good all-round performance rather than a great one, but that makes him one of the better players in the top half of our little table in this particular week.
1. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United (-)
There was absolutely no doubt about our number one this week, not that Fernandes was necessarily at his very best against Chelsea – he was solid rather than spectacular, but that’s been the absolute baseline to his performances for months now and in terms of form, he’s been probably the best and certainly the most consistent young player in the Premier League for weeks on end now.
The result is a third consecutive week at number one and a hefty gap back to the chasing pack – and in terms of his contributions to West Ham’s eventual 3-2 defeat to Chelsea, the result was seven turnovers out of possession, two presentable chances created with his passing, and a highly impressive 150m of uninterrupted dribbling when he was working to break lines and find space to make his next move. A true box-to-box all-rounder with no meaningful weaknesses, and who has scarcely put a foot wrong for months. He could easily be the best young player we’ve ever seen who’s also managed to get dragged into back-to-back relegation battles with different clubs… Just don’t blame him.
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