Ranking the 10 best young players in the Premier League over the course of the 2026/27 season.
Every week this season, our journalists compiled a countdown of the Top 10 most in-form young players in the Premier League: The Wonderkid Power Rankings. But while that was a fun way to monitor the progress of the brightest young talent as their performances ebbed and flowed, it didn’t try to work out which wonderkids had been the best over the course of the entire season – so that’s what we’re going to do today.
Nico O'Reilly, Adam Wharton, Kobbie Mainoo & Lewis Hallplaceholder image
Nico O'Reilly, Adam Wharton, Kobbie Mainoo & Lewis Hall | Getty Images/Iconic Media
We went back over a season’s worth of weekly rankings to put together a list of the Top 10 best young players in the Premier League based on the entirety of the 2026/27 season. We bent the usual Power Rankings rules a little to include players who turned 22 over the course of the campaign (usually players ‘age out’ of the rankings when they’re no longer under-21s) but otherwise applied the same sort of criteria and used the same logic – we just expanded to look at a full year’s worth of work.
Before we get going, we wanted to note some honourable mentions who narrowly missed out: Patrick Dorgu, Mateus Mané, Estêvão Willian, Jaydee Canvot, Abdukodir Khusanov and Yankuba Minteh all came close without getting their cigar, mostly because they were either a little too inconsistent, unavailable to play for long periods, or both. But we were suitably impressed by all of them and they each spent plenty of time in our Top 10s. Anyway, on with the best of the best…
10. Rayan – AFC Bournemouth
If Rayan had been signed in August instead of January, we suspect he’d be somewhat further up our list – as it is, a body of work which was limited to just 15 Premier League appearances counted against the Brazilian despite the massive impact he had in a short space of time.
The 19-year-old bagged an assist on his debut against Wolves, scored on his first start against Aston Villa a week later, and wound up with five goals in total as his razor sharp finishing and tireless running helped Bournemouth to bounce back from a disappointing winter. When Rayan joined, the Cherries had won just one game in over three months. They haven’t lost once since he pulled a black and red shirt on. That isn’t a coincidence.
9. Lewis Miley – Newcastle United
Another player who probably would have been ranked higher if he’d been able to play more. Miley missed the vast majority of the second half of the season through injury, but he’d already made his mark with a superb string of performances through the winter.
The rapidly-maturing midfielder was tenacious out of possession, outstanding in one-on-one situations and impressively dynamic bringing the ball forward, making him precisely the kind of high-octane box-to-box midfielder that Eddie Howe seems to prize – and he put in a few good shifts at right-back when injuries required it as well. Miley demonstrated a fine combination of technical quality and work rate, and the future looks very bright once he’s back to full fitness.
8. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United
We’ve wound up with a double helping of Geordies in our Top 10 thanks to Hall, who very much earned a place despite the fact that his form undeniably tailed off towards the end of the season, especially in the wake of the thumping that Newcastle took in the Camp Nou in March.
Before that downturn, however, Hall was excellent. Picking up where he left off last year, Hall was lethal on the overlap, a constant source of attacking impetus, and seemed to be gradually growing in stature as a defender too, tidying up his positioning and looking a little tougher for flying wingers to get the better of. He’ll probably always be better going forward than he is heading back towards his own penalty area, but he’s getting the balance right now and is gradually becoming a well-rounded wing-back as well as a dangerous one.
7. Noah Sadiki – AFC Sunderland
With apologies for dampening the mood of any Newcastle fans reading, we’ve got a Sunderland player ahead of both of their entries in our Top 10: Sadiki drew far less attention that most of the new signings that the Black Cats made during a busy and highly successful summer, but ended up being one of the best of the bunch.
A grafting defensive midfielder who was consistently impressive for day one, Sadiki did a huge amount of work shutting down opposing attacks alongside Granit Xhaka and seemed to read the game like a player a decade his senior. Playing with a combination of maturity and measured aggression, the Congolese made a complete nuisance of himself without ever seeming to run into a patch of bad form. Rock solid, week after week, and a crucial component of Sunderland’s successful season.
6. Kobbie Mainoo – Manchester United
It’s amazing how swiftly a season – perhaps even a career – can turn around. By the time Ruben Amorim was fired by Manchester United, Mainoo was a bit-part player who looked set to be sold. Then Michael Carrick came in, relit the midfielder’s spark, and now he’s got a new long-term contract and he’s back in the England squad.
Given a role which suited his style of play far better by Carrick, Mainoo was utterly rejuvenated. His passing looked sharp, his defensive work was close to faultless and all those quick darting runs between the lines helped United to maintain attacking pressure on their opponents as the wins started to pile up again. Mainoo wasn’t the flashiest player in Carrick’s side, but he was a key cog in the engine – and he scored the winner against Liverpool, too.
5. Michael Kayode – Brentford
There wasn’t a single player who made every single one of our weekly Power Rankings this season – nor do we ever expect that to happen - but Kayode came pretty damned close, and was among the most consistent performers of the year, only really hitting a lull briefly in the early spring when he started making an uncharacteristic number of mistakes.
Still, that doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s become a hugely impressive player already. Strong positionally at the back, excellent on the ball going forward, a fine crosser and launcher of some of the Premier League’s very longest long throws, Kayode is a jack of all trades, master of quite a few of them. Already a full Italy international and supposedly on the shortlists of several big sides, we wonder whether Brentford will be able to hang on to him for much longer.
4. Eli Junior Kroupi – AFC Bournemouth
The Frenchman broke records this season, with his 13 Premier League goals the most ever scored by a teenager in their debut season, breaking a mark set by a young Robbie Keane more than 20 years ago. Give Kroupi half a chance in front of goal, and he seems to be utterly lethal.
There are plenty of rough edges to sand off in his game and his link-up play certainly needs some polishing, but his movement and finishing are amazing well developed and given that strikers are ultimately measured by their goal output, Kroupi absolutely deserves to go down as one of the best young players of the year. A real revelation.
3. Adam Wharton – Crystal Palace
Wharton aged out of consideration for our Power Rankings back in February but was a repeat number one before that point, and rightly so – this was the supremely talented Wharton’s most consistent and well-rounded season yet.
All those lacerating through-balls and all that dogged determination to win possession off the ball were present and correct, but this year they’ve been married to a growing ability to read the game and to choose when to try and pull the opposing defence apart and when to take a more conservative option. Oh, and apparently he does backflips now. He may not have made the World Cup squad, but his reputation continues to grow nonetheless.
2. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City
O’Reilly seems to be sweeping the end-of-season young player awards, and he certainly deserves all of the flowers he’s being showered with after a deeply impressive year in which he tightened up his defensive play, worked on his touch and technique, and became a player capable of having a consistent and considerable impact at both ends of the field.
Whether Pep Guardiola was deploying him as a left-back or as a midfielder, O’Reilly found ways to get involved right up and down the park and was hugely effective, particularly in the biggest games – his brace won the EFL Cup final against Arsenal, the crowning moment of a superb season in which he also justly established himself as England’s de facto first-choice left-back. Manchester City could scarcely have asked for more.
1. Mateus Fernandes – West Ham United
As wonderful as O’Reilly was, however, it’s Fernandes who gets our vote for the best young player of the Premier League season after a year in which be shattered Wonderkid Power Rankings records: His nine weeks in first place and six in a row are both new records. Week in, week out, Fernandes was simply exceptional in a struggling side.
In years to come, it will seem absurd that such a immensely impactful player could get relegated twice in a row with different teams, but the travails of both West Ham and Southampton can’t be blamed on Fernandes – instead, he elevated his teams, doing everything within his power to lift them out of the gutter with endless energy, superb defensive work, strong running, excellent passing (just check out his through ball for Jarrod Bowen on the final day of the season) and the occasional screamer.
Fernandes, for the second year in a row, was the best and most consistent player on a bad team, doing everything that could be asked of him to prevent a team from collapsing around him. The good news is that he surely won’t have to worry about getting relegated for a third time, as Europe’s elite teams finally seem to be taking notice of him. Expect a big move and a brilliant career to follow.
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