The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Arsenal starlet bulldozes to the top as Chelsea gem joins top ten

Every week, the Wonderkid Power Rankings runs through the highlights and pores over the stats to answer one of a big question – just who is the best young player in the Premier League right now?

Last week, Bournemouth’s Dean Huijsen (who has been our countdown’s dominant force since the turn of the year) reclaimed the number one spot, but we’ve got gifted Under-21s from Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Brighton moving up this week as they look to challenge the gangling Spaniard’s position.

As always, we like to let you know which players have dropped out, and why. This week, Tottenham Hotspur’s Lucas Bergvall compounded a relatively modest run of form with a mistake which led directly to Wolves’ fourth goal at the Molineux, while Ethan Nwaneri perhaps harshly drops out after showing some flashes of his immense talent against Brentford without making a meaningful impact in the final third. Anyway, on with this week’s Top 10…

10. Carlos Baleba – Brighton & Hove Albion (re-entry)

Baleba’s form has, much like his team’s, rather waxed and waned throughout the season and he’s dropped out and returned to our Top 10 more often than any other player – but he’s been very steady lately, and looked impressive when crowbarred into a centre-back’s role against Leicester City even though they conceded two goals to a side who hadn’t scored since January. Baleba racked up four tackles, won a bunch of fifty-fifties and blocked two shots, a stat line any ‘real’ centre-back would be proud of.

9. Mateus Fernandes – Southampton (⬇️4)

It was a much worse week for Portuguese midfielder Fernandes, whose run of fine form came to an abrupt end with a bit of a stinker in the 3-0 defeat against Aston Villa. Just for one day, the 20-year-old was all the things he normally isn’t – error-prone, weak in the tackle and in one-on-ones, and unable to get anything going with the ball at his feet. To be fair, he’s pretty much carried the Saints as best he could for months on end, and if anyone on the south coast has earned some grace for a bad game, it’s Fernandes.

8. Jack Hinshelwood - Brighton & Hove Albion (⬇️1)

Hinshelwood wasn’t so much ‘bad’ against Leicester as merely lacking real impact – what he did do, both on and off the ball, was perfectly solid, but he wasn’t able to make many telling interventions in either third of the pitch. In the end, a quiet game was summed up with the sum total of successful tackles and completed crosses he made from right wing-back: zero.

7. Malo Gusto – Chelsea (new entry)

If you’d have told us that it would take eight months of football for Gusto, a regular in last season’s rankings, to make his way into out 2024/25 Top 10, we wouldn’t have believed you – but after a consistently underwhelming season, the Frenchman is finally starting to motor again. A fine all-round performance in the Conference League win over Legia Warsaw was followed by his introduction for the second half against Ipswich, when his dynamic passing made a big difference as Enzo Maresca’s side came back from two down to draw. Brilliant against Spurs a couple of weeks back, Gusto is finally in real form after a long wait.

6. Yankuba Minteh – Brighton & Hove Albion (-)

We weren’t quite sure what to do with Minteh this week. On the one hand, he was often dynamic and dangerous against Leicester, creating one or two very presentable chances and offering a lively outlet down the right flank – but on the other hand, he also spurned a gilt-edged chance at the far post when he got his angles and process completely wrong. Overall, a very decent performance from the Gambian, but he should have scored.

5. Patrick Dorgu – Manchester United (⬇️1)

Had Dorgu’s week stopped after the 2-2 draw against Lyon, in which he was once again an important part of Amorim’s attacking plan and made a real impact in the final third, we would have been thinking about whether to move him into the top three. As it was, after his 35-minute appearances against Newcastle, he’s very lucky to still be fifth.

The problem is that while Dorgu has been excellent going forward, opposing teams are starting to work out that he isn’t brilliant when wingers dribble at him or take him on with pace. Lyon had joy when isolating him one-on-one on a few occasions, and Newcastle almost took that to an extreme – brought on in the second half, Dorgu was beaten twice on the outside and lost eight ground duels, mostly against Jacob Murphy. We seem to have found Dorgu’s biggest flaw, and how he responds will have a big bearing on his success or failure over the coming years.

4. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (⬆️4)

All of a sudden, O’Reilly seems to be a first-team regular – and he’s thriving. Sure, he may be an attacking midfielder being played out of position at left-back, but it doesn’t seem to matter much and he’s now up to five goal contributions in his last five City games despite playing in defence.

He looked like a number ten in taking his goal, as well, a wonderfully well-controlled shot into the bottom-left corner from just outside the penalty area, but he also looked like a fine marauding wing-back when getting to the byline and cutting back for Kevin de Bruyne to tee up Mateo Kovačić. City have a huge and apparently very versatile talent on their hands.

3. Dean Huijsen – Bournemouth (⬇️2)

Bournemouth may have kept their European ambitions alive with a win and a clean sheet against Fulham on Monday evening, but Huijsen wasn’t really at his best – as suggested by a really poor defensive header early on which could easily have teed the Cottagers up for an equaliser.

There was nothing especially egregious in what followed, but for once Huijsen didn’t seem to be everywhere at the back, didn’t make any telling interventions and didn’t pass the ball about from his own third like he was taught by Andrea Pirlo. Not a bad performance, but an underwhelming one, and others were better this week…

2. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth (-)

…Including Huijsen’s Hungarian team-mate, who was superb when dealing with both balls over the top and one-on-one situations, showing off plenty of guile in repeatedly drawing fouls in pressure situations after long balls down Fulham’s right flank.

Admittedly, Kerkez was a little less impressive going forward and we didn’t get to see any of his usual pinpoint crossing or knack for a lethal pass down the channels – indeed, he didn’t complete any of his five attempted crosses and his radar seemed to be a little off. Still, he did so much strong work in his own third that we can’t call it anything other than a fine performance.

1. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal (⬆️2)

This week’s crown, however, goes to another left-back – teenager Lewis-Skelly, who takes top spot for the second time after looking like he’d been doing this for years against Real Madrid, keeping Rodrygo and occasionally Kylian Mbappé quiet down the Arsenal left and barely putting a single foot wrong in yet another astonishingly composed and mature performance.

There may be nothing especially unusual about seeing a youngster with Lewis-Skelly’s confidence, but his outstanding decision-making is such a rare thing at his age, and he seldom failed to take the right option, whether it was knowing when to go for a tackle or when to stand off, or when to pass and when to make a move himself. A neat assist for Mikel Merino’s goal was the cherry on top.

Lewis-Skelly was only a substitute against Brentford in the end as Mikel Arteta opted to give him a bit of a breather, but when he came on he completed every pass, made every tackle, and generally looked as good as anyone else on the pitch. Lewis-Skelly’s future is astonishingly bright.