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Who are the best young players in the Premier League? Our weekly top ten sees Aston Villa, Spurs, Newcastle and Manchester City starlets towards the top.
Once again, the weekly Wonderkid Power Rankings are back to answer the simple but challenging question – who is the best young player in the Premier League?
Last week, Jhon Durán regained his spot at the top of the table thanks to a goal for Colombia, but international breaks always do weird things to our top tens, as high-flying players find themselves without a game and also-rans suddenly become stars for their country.
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Accordingly, we have three players leaving our rankings this week, with two brand new entries and a returning hero to replace them. James McAtee, who has been on fire for England’s Under-21s but seldom plays for Manchester City, is gone once again and turned 22 anyway, which means he won’t be back thanks to our age rules.
Meanwhile, Jack Hinshelwood’s recent rough form has caught up with him, and Manchester United’s Kobbie Mainoo also drops out due to the injury which kept him out of the last England squad. It sounds as though Mainoo may be out for a couple of weeks yet, but as one of our mainstays we’re sure he’ll be back in the rankings quickly once he returns.
The Hungarian left-back has been on consistently solid form of late and put in perhaps his best performance of the season in the surprise 2-0 win against Arsenal. Playing against ten men may have made it easier, but he still did his defensive duties well and his movement getting forward is excellent, providing so much width to the Bournemouth attack. What he still need to do to take his game up to the next level is to work on his production – if he could cross as well as he gets into dangerous crossing positions, he’d be a star.
Delap couldn’t keep his good goal-scoring run going in a 2-0 defeat to Everton, which felt like a pretty crushing blow to Ipswich Town’s credentials as a team that can beat relegation. Delap himself struggled to find the same amount of space as he has done in recent matches and while he did manage to get three shots away, none could really be classed as clear-cut chances and all were around the edge of the area. The service wasn’t there, and nor was Delap able to carve something out of nothing.
We have a standing rule that top five players don’t get jettisoned from the rankings for missing one game with a knock, which is apparently why the star of Gambia’s recent Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers was left out against Newcastle United. In other words, we don’t want to punish him too harshly given that he’s now bagged two goals and an assist across three games for club and country.
The young Dane is back to full fitness, back in the starting line-up and back in the goals – his coolly-taken dinked finish over Mark Flekken made it two goals in three games for United and, more critically, it earned a much-needed three points. There was every argument to be made for bringing Alejandro Garnacho back into the top ten after his beautifully-taken goal too, by the way, but he narrowly missed out due to his recent inconsistency. He’ll be back soon, no doubt, but competition for a place in the lower half of our ladder has been fierce lately.
The Chelsea centre-back has been the model of consistency this season but finally put up a poor display at Anfield in the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool, conceding a crucial penalty which ultimately cost his side the match. Even outside of that, the speed of Mohamed Salah and the physicality (and unpredictability) of Darwin Núñez gave Colwill an unusually high volume of problems. Not his best outing.
Leicester City’s on-loan Argentine had muscled his way back in to the top ten a couple of weeks ago with some eye-catching performances, was dropped last week after spending two games on the bench for his country, and now bounces right back in after scoring for the second consecutive match.
Granted, he could barely have missed from two or three yards out, but his run into the box to get ahead of his marker was still excellent and the bundled goal which started the remarkable comeback against Southampton was just reward for another lively performance in which he demonstrated creativity, excellent off-ball running and some fine passing.
Udogie doesn’t have too much time left in our rankings, as his 22nd birthday looms at the end of November, but judging by his performance in the 4-1 win over West Ham United, he’s determined to end his career as a youngster on a high.
Yes, he was at fault for West Ham’s goal, beaten a little too easily to allow a pull-back to find Mohammed Kudus – but he was brilliant from then on out and made up for his earlier error with a superb assist, getting to the byline, twisting his marker inside out and finding the onrushing Yves Bissouma as he burst into the box. Time and again he found space down the left to play dangerous passes and advance possession, and all told that was perhaps his best game of the campaign.
No change for Lewis, who put in a rock solid display in the late, late win over Wolverhampton Wanderers and helped his team to keep constant control of the ball – indeed, he only conceded possession five times in the entire match, which is a remarkably low number.
His passing and use of the ball was as economical as ever and he was impressive when called upon to do some defensive duties, racking up a couple of timely tackles and two fine interceptions to make sure that Wolves’ threat on the counter was intermittent only. A mistake-free match and one that solidifies his spot towards the top of our rankings.
The unkindest thing you can say about Hall’s recent form is that he hasn’t put in a banner performance, the kind of showing which grabs headlines and gets tongues wagging – but he’s been consistently impressive for his side even as their form waxes and wanes, and has been one of the best passing full-backs in the league so far.
Had a poor header which allowed Brighton & Hove Albion in not blotted his copybook, we might have made him number one for the first time, but as it stands several dangerous deliveries down the flank to set Anthony Gordon free and some otherwise impeccable defensive work means he holds fast in second place. A growing force in a team that’s struggling to produce its best form.
The Colombian couldn’t keep his scoring form as a super sub up this weekend and was generally given little chance to get into the game during the 15 minutes he spent on the pitch for Aston Villa – but his recent form has been so strong in general that we didn’t think that any of the chasing pack had made a sufficiently strong case to oust him from top spot, for this week at least.
He only had seven touches of the ball and one shot after replacing Ollie Watkins, which is perhaps par for the course when you’re an impact sub and not the starter that he surely would be in almost every other team in the Premier League based on his red-hot form in front of goal. We wouldn’t keep him top had he not been so damned good of late or had Hall or Lewis really shone, but in the end Durán earned his top spot and we won’t take it away from him this week. Fail to make an impact next week, however…