Yankuba Minteh, Chemsdine Talbi, Kobbie Mainoo & Nico O'Reillyplaceholder image
Yankuba Minteh, Chemsdine Talbi, Kobbie Mainoo & Nico O'Reilly | Getty Images/Iconic Media
Who is the best young player in the Premier League? Our weekly rankings attempt to find out...
Every Tuesday, our journalists comb through the stats and watch the tape in the hope of answering a difficult question: Who is the best young player in the Premier League right now? The result is our weekly Wonderkid Power Rankings.
Last time out, Newcastle’s Lewis Hall took top spot, but can he cap a week in which he was recalled to the England squad with an extended stay on the throne? Or will his performances in a crushingly disappointing week for his club provide a member of the chasing pack with the opportunity to claim the crown?
We’ve got two talented Under-21s falling out of our Top 10 this week – neither Bournemouth’s Rayan nor West Ham’s El Hadji Malick Diouf, who was culpable for the decisive goal in his side’s defeat to Aston Villa this weekend, did enough to keep their spot under pressure from two new entries, one of whom enters the rankings for the very first time. Let’s get into it…
10. Chemsdine Talbi – Sunderland (new entry)
The young Moroccan, who is now technically an Africa Cup of Nations champion after the controversial decision to strip Senegal of their title, earns a place in our countdown for the very first time after a decisive outing in the Tyne-Wear Derby. Lively throughout, Talbi was one of a few young Sunderland players who impressed us, but his crucial close-range equaliser (and the superb curling effort which stretched Aaron Ramsdale to his limits in the first half) meant that it’s the winger who gets the nod this week ahead of colleagues like Chris Rigg and Noah Sadiki, both of whom also got some nods of approval from our panel.
9. Michael Kayode – Brentford (⬇️2)
Kayode really wasn’t at his best in the drab 0-0 draw with Leeds. Not only was he unusually becalmed in his attempts to get forward to support Brentford’s attacks, making very little impression in the final third, but he was uncharacteristically weak when competing for contested balls, losing out in a few one-on-ones and giving the ball away to give Ethan Ampadu a sight of goal in the second half. No harm was done in the end and there was a fair amount of good work sweeping up Leeds’ crosses, but the Italian has performed much better this season.
8. Abdukodir Khusanov – Manchester City (re-entry)
The Uzbek defender spent several weeks in our rankings earlier this season but lost his place after making one too many glaring errors – but he’s been back on better form of late and was excellent in the EFL Cup final, keeping Arsenal’s attack exceptionally quiet and showing much better judgement in pressure situations (one rather rash late tackle on Viktor Gyökeres notwithstanding). He was solid against Real Madrid, too, even if the Spanish side emerged as comfortable victors in their Champions League tie.
7. Álex Jiménez – AFC Bournemouth (⬇️1)
The Spanish full-back showed some of his inexperience against Manchester United when he was baited into pulling Matheus Cunha down inside the box to give away a penalty – but that mistake aside, he was rock solid at the back, putting up an impressive stats sheet which included seven turnovers, three interceptions and two blocked shots. For the most part, this was a good game for Jiménez, but his lapse costs him a spot in the rankings this week.
6. Yankuba Minteh – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬆️4)
The Gambian winger has found a fresh lease of life on the left wing in the last few games, and not only did he play a key role in setting up Brighton’s winner against Liverpool with a superb cross which was knocked back across goal to Danny Welbeck, but he could easily have added some gloss to the win late on when he surged in behind the defence only to be denied by Alisson on the angle. A lively outing for a player starting to get his form back in promising fashion.
5. Jaydee Canvot – Crystal Palace (⬇️1)
Canvot drops a place this week for the simple reason that he didn’t play, with Crystal Palace’s game against Manchester City rescheduled due to the EFL Cup final. His overall form in recent weeks has been strong enough to keep him firmly in the top five, however, and we couldn’t justify sending him any further down our table.
4. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United (⬇️1)
Having dominated the Wonderkid Power Rankings for much of the spring – the midfielder was our number one for seven weeks out of eight until recently – Fernandes has hit a relatively rocky patch of form over the last couple of games, and could easily have slid further had the player below him done more. His passing was as crisp and cultured as ever against Aston Villa, but he wasn’t at his most impactful off the ball and made a couple of noticeable errors. Usually the very model of consistency, the Portuguese has just fallen off a little at a critical time.
3. Kobbie Mainoo – Manchester United (⬇️1)
A three-star outing for Mainoo off the back of his England call-up. The 20-year-old didn’t do anything wrong in the 2-2 draw against Bournemouth but neither did he find ways to grab the game by the scruff of its neck. Often less effective in stretched games like this one, Mainoo knocked the ball around well enough and was tenacious in defence, without really affecting the flow of play.
2. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (⬇️1)
We spent a while agonising over how to place last week’s number one. On the one hand, some of his attacking play against Barcelona and Sunderland was excellent: He provided Anthony Elanga’s first goal in the Camp Nou with a superb cross and chipped in with the ‘assist’ for Malick Thiaw’s disallowed goal on derby day, but his defensive work was certainly sub-par. Perhaps culpable for Sunderland’s winner after being caught too far upfield, he also became frustrated and lackadaisical as the goals piled up in the Champions League. In the end, we didn’t feel like anyone below him had done enough to come in ahead of him in our Top 10 – with one notable exception…
1. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (⬆️4)
After we crowned him as our number one a few weeks ago, O’Reilly endured a few pretty ordinary performances on the bounce and was subsequently benched for the second leg against Real Madrid – but he bounced back in stunning style to become the hero of the hour at Wembley on Sunday.
It’s a neat trick to pull off to be able to consistently defend well from left-back while also twice getting into poacher’s positions to score both goals against Arsenal, and there are plenty of strikers that wouldn’t have gambled so effectively on Kepa Arrizabalaga’s mistake to open the scoring and more or less seal the game. It’s impossible to argue against the man who won a cup final being a worthy number one, and so O’Reilly ascends to first place one more.
It’s a position he’ll keep for a full three weeks now. While this is generally a weekly endeavour, we don’t run the Wonderkid Power Rankings during international breaks and with only eight Premier League teams in action during the FA Cup quarter-finals in just under a fortnight’s time, we’ve decided that it’s only fair to return on 14 April, once everyone involved has had a chance to play. We’ll see you then.
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