The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Wolves and Bournemouth starlets catch fire as Arsenal ace smashed off top spot

Every week, our writers run through the stats and pore over the tape to piece together a Top 10 of the most in-form young players in the Premier League right now – and this week, that meant getting to watch some truly sublime goals on repeat, especially from some of Brighton’s best under-21s.

The best performances came from those either lower down or even outside of last week’s rankings, which means some movement at the top and perhaps a chance for another rising star to claim top spot from Myles Lewis-Skelly, who’s held the crown for the past fortnight now.

As is often the case, we do need to note the names of the players dropping out this week – two Chelsea players, Malo Gusto and Tyrique George, fall away after being given a combined two minutes of football to play over the weekend, while Yankuba Minteh slides out of the Top 10 too after a quiet cameo from the bench against West Ham. That leaves room for three returning faces, at least…

10. Rodrigo Gomes – Wolverhampton Wanderers (re-entry)

We’re impressed with the 21-year-old Portuguese wide-man almost every time we watch him, and are surprised that he’s continually restricted to substitute appearances – then again, Vitor Pereira seems to know what he’s doing and Gomes had a big impact off the bench against Leicester City, bursting onto Matheus Cunha’s pass and finishing on the sprint to score his third of the season. A dangerous and rapidly developing player who will surely see the pitch more next year.

9. Patrick Dorgu – Manchester United (⬇️3)

We’ve generally been very impressed with the Danish wing-back since he signed in January, but he had a pretty bad game away at Bournemouth – he was culpable for Antoine Semenyo’s opener after being caught in possession, and while he otherwise defended solidly enough he wasn’t able to make much of a dent in the final third and failed to complete a single cross. Capable of much better, at both ends of the pitch.

8. Yasin Ayari – Brighton & Hove Albion (re-entry)

The first of no fewer than three Seagulls who soar into our rankings this week. The young Swede has been on the cusp of breaking back into the Top 10 for a while now, putting in consistently solid performances both on and off the ball, but ensured his return with a stunning 25-yard strike to open the scoring against West Ham. Amazingly, however that venomous, curling, dipping effort wasn’t even the best goal scored by his team that day…

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

Step forward Baleba, who has had an up-and-down time of late after being crowbarred into an unfamiliar centre-back role due to injuries, but who played very well indeed against West Ham and capped it by blasting the ball home from all of 30 yards to win the game at the Amex Stadium. He was pretty handy doing his actual defensive duties, too – six clearances, four tackles and an interception is a stat sheet proper centre-backs would be proud of.

6. Jack Hinshelwood – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬆️1)

This is, surely, the first time since we started the Wonderkid Power Rankings that we’ve had three players from the same team in a row, but Brighton know a thing or two about youth recruitment – as another measured, composed and economical performance in midfield from Hinshelwood showed. He looks much more comfortable in the middle than at right back (not that he did too badly as a makeshift defender) and his passing game was highly impressive against West Ham. Gets the assist for Ayari’s stunner with probably the simplest sideways pass he made all day.

5. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (⬇️2)

O’Reilly may have stopped scoring almost every time he sets foot on the pitch, but we saw plenty of reasons why he may be set for a long run in the Manchester City first team over the course of wins over Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest this past week – the dynamism on the ball, the instinctive touch and control and the ability to contribute effectively towards the build-up were all firmly on show.

That said, this was perhaps the first time that we’ve really been reminded that O’Reilly isn’t a proper left-back – his defending one-on-one against ball carriers was suspect on occasion, in particular – and he also missed a fine chance inside the six-yard box against Forest. As a result of some faults and flaws, a likely future England star drops a couple of places.

4. Mateus Fernandes – Southampton (⬆️1)

Being by far the best player on a diabolically poor Southampton team hasn’t been an easy assignment but you have to give Fernandes credit – his work rate has never flagged, and he once again popped up all over the pitch, ploughing what felt like a very lonely furrow in (yet another) defeat against Fulham.

He didn’t have many opportunities to show off his cutting edge in the final third this time around but still forced five turnovers, blocked two shots and won seven ground duels in a whole-hearted performance. Unlikely to follow the Saints into the second tier, based on what we’ve seen.

3. Dean Huijsen – Bournemouth (⬇️1)

The lanky Spanish centre-back didn’t do much wrong at the back during the 1-1 draw against Manchester United – he won every aerial ball, made a typically impressive eight clearances as he swept up everything over the top or in behind, and didn’t put a foot wrong with his positioning. That said, he still drops a place because his work with the ball at his feet was unusually poor.

Huijsen is developing into a fabulous ball-playing centre-half (just check out his assist for Lamine Yamal on full debut for Spain during the last international break), but his radar was well off today – he misplaced the ball too many times and completed just one of 11 attempted long balls. An off day, at least in that one regard.

2. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal (⬇️1)

It always feels a little cruel to drop a player off top spot when they didn’t really do much wrong – then again, Lewis-Skelly had one of those quieter games that even the best players endure in which he didn’t do anything notable at all.

In the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace, Lewis-Skelly registered zero successful tackles, zero successful dribbles, and frankly zero memorable contributions. There were no blemishes or genuine errors, but the dynamism and sparkle that we often see was lacking for once. A three-star performance from a five-star talent, and not enough to hang on to first place in our rankings.

1. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth (⬆️3)

In a week in which none of our top four or five players from last week really shone (let’s just say the gap between the two halves of the table closed significantly over the last seven days), Kerkez probably came out on top with the best individual performance, even if he was a little sloppier in possession than usual.

Rock solid at the back – the Hungarian won every one-on-one battle he faced and made two key interceptions to break down Manchester United moves – Kerkez was perhaps guilty of overplaying a little going forward but while that led to giving away the ball at times, he was also the building block for several of Bournemouth’s best moves and always looked threatening. Based on recent form and this weekend’s outings, we reckon Kerkez shades it – that’s the fourth time Kerkez has taken top spot this season. Can he hang on this time?