Our final countdown of the best young players in the Premier League features new entries from Arsenal, Manchester United & Sunderland.
For one final time this season, our journalists have gathered round the table, combed through the stats and had a brief argument about who the 10 best young players in the Premier League are right now – and the result is the final 2025/26 edition of The Wonderkid Power Rankings.
As always, we’ve put together a list of who we believe to the most on-song Under-21s in the country based not on underlying talent or their work over the season but on their production and form in recent weeks – so this final Top 10 isn’t a list of the best young players of the season but of the best over the last couple of months.
Last week, Eli Junior Kroupi took top spot to round off a fine run of goalscoring form, putting him in a fine position to finish the season on top of our table – but that doesn’t guarantee that he’ll hang on with plenty of gifted youngsters breathing down his neck.
Three players drop out this week: Liverpool’s Rio Ngumoha didn’t quite do enough to keep his place as a handful of players outside the previous list muscle their way in, Manchester City’s Abdukodir Khusanov slides out after being left out of the matchday squad for the final day, and Brighton winger Yankuba Minteh couldn’t get enough going during 45 minutes of action against Manchester United to keep his spot either. Anyway, let’s crack on for the last time until August…
10. Jack Hinshelwood – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬇️4)
Hinshelwood is only a couple of weeks removed from a brilliant run of goalscoring form but he didn’t look too threatening during the 3-0 defeat to Manchester United. Managing just 19 touches of the ball in 74 minutes, the midfielder was largely anonymous both on and off the ball, a couple of nice carries notwithstanding. Despite failing to make meaningful impact on the match, Hinshelwood just about hangs on to the Top 10 due to the plentiful credit he had in the bank after his recent purple patch.
9. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (⬇️4)
It feels a little harsh to have O’Reilly, undeniably one of the best young players of the season and a former number one, finish the season this far down the rankings – but rules are rules, and he loses places after being rested for the final game of the season against Aston Villa. A well-earned break, but one which costs him, albeit not enough for us to shove him out of the Top 10 completely. That would be rather excessive.
8. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal (re-entry)
Having finally started to muscle his way back into the conversation for starting minutes at Arsenal as a midfielder, Lewis-Skelly has also forced his way back into the Power Rankings for the first time since January right at the death. The 19-year-old was excellent against Crystal Palace, winning possession back repeatedly, using the ball nicely and drawing a string of fouls thanks to his first touch and quick feet. It’s unfortunate for him that he wasn’t given the chance to string this kind of form together in time to force his way back into the England squad for the World Cup.
7. Noah Sadiki – Sunderland (re-entry)
Sadiki was a staple of these lists for the first half of the season but drifted out after the Africa Cup of Nations – but he’s been in the conversation for the Top 10 again for weeks now, always playing solidly but only occasionally doing enough to force his way in. With so many players sliding out this week, however, we felt it was right to reward the Congolese midfielder’s consistency over recent weeks, as well as his rock solid work against Chelsea when he let very little past him and made relatively light work of the opposition’s efforts to overload Sunderland’s left flank.
6. Patrick Dorgu – Manchester United (re-entry)
Of our three returning starlets, Dorgu certainly brought the curtain down with the biggest bang. Not only did the Dane provide the assist for Bruno Fernandes’ goal, sorting his feet out quickly enough to turn a bad touch into a goal, but he also gets the credit for the opener thanks to a thumping header from Fernandes’ corner. And yes, we know it should have been given as an own goal, and that means that Fernandes shouldn’t actually be credited with breaking the assist record… but at the time of writing they hadn’t changed it yet and we’re not counting it against Dorgu anyway. He put in perhaps the best performance of any young player this week, and gets his Top 10 spot back as a result.
5. Rayan – AFC Bournemouth (⬇️1)
Most weeks, Rayan probably would have fallen another place or two after a forgettable final-day outing against Nottingham Forest, but he had too much credit in his back pocket to be overtaken by players who weren’t even in the Top 10 last week, so the Brazilian winger finishes in fifth place – a reflection of past form more than this week’s work.
He did his best to get involved, buzzing around off the ball in a typically busy fashion, but simply couldn’t force his way into the game and the sum totality of his production in the final third was a single blocked shot. Not his best game, certainly, but Rayan remains one of the best signings of the January transfer window and a hugely promising talent.
4. Mateus Mané – Wolverhampton Wanderers (⬆️5)
One player who did earn the right to go above Rayan was Mané, who was absolutely superb in the basement battle against Burnley and would have richly deserved it had he earned the credit for a goal or assist – but in the end, none of the six shooting chances he created were turned in, and the closest he came to a goal was when he superb curling effort from the edge of the area was turned onto the post.
There was a period through the spring when the teenager became a little bit becalmed after a lightning-fast start to his Premier League career, but he’s ended the season with his confidence and brio back and some fine form. It’s starting to sound as though he’ll stay with Wolves in the second tier – given the energy, threat and creative flair he offered against Burnley, that could be extremely good news for his side.
3. Kobbie Mainoo – Manchester United (⬇️1)
Mainoo’s return to form has been one of the key reasons that Manchester United have been able to battle their way back into the top four, and he ends the season near the top of our rankings after a solid if not necessarily inspiring outing in the easy win over Brighton.
His passing wasn’t quite as crisp and precise as usual and he ended up giving possession away quite a few times – 19 in total – but there was plenty of defensive grit and graft in evidence, including a blocked shot and eight ‘wins’ in one-on-one situations. A respectable way to end a fine season.
2. Eli Junior Kroupi – AFC Bournemouth (⬇️1)
The Frenchman just couldn’t quite hold on to top spot for the final week of the season after drawing a blank at the City Ground, not that he didn’t do plenty of huffing and puffing in the search for a 14th goal of his debut Premier League season.
Kroupi managed to get no fewer than six shots away but none of them were particularly good opportunities in truth, with four of them blocked from awkward angles, and a lot of his darting runs led him down blind alleys rather than into genuinely promising positions. Still, it’s been an astonishing year for the youngster and we’re expecting to hear his name come up a lot when the transfer window opens up next month.
1. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United (⬆️2)
In years to come, the fact that Fernandes has been relegated twice in a row with different teams is going to look like a truly incomprehensible statistic. The Portuguese midfielder was comfortably his side’s best and most consistent player all year (as he was for Southampton last season) and worked his socks off week in, week out, playing brilliantly on and off the ball. It’s not his fault that he was doing so much in pursuit of a second consecutive lost cause.
He’s the player we’ve named at number one more than any other this season, he broke the record for most consecutive weeks in first place with six earlier in 2026, and one last week at the top of the table is just reward for all his determination and excellence. In the ultimately fruitless win over Leeds, Fernandes forced five turnovers, won all five of his attempted tackles, drove possession forward repeatedly and set up Jarrod Bowen’s goal with a stunning through ball from inside his own half. A brilliant player destined for much bigger things than another relegation fight.
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