The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Newcastle, Chelsea & Villa youngsters scrapping for top spot

We may have had to endure another international break over the past week, but that doesn’t stop The Wonderkid Power Rankings – we simply turn our attention from the Premier League performances of England’s finest young talent and instead monitor their progress in the international game.

That always ends up with our top ten going a little bit skew-whiff, and this week is not an exception to that rule. Two players drop out of the top ten, either because they didn’t get a game over the break – sorry, Facundo Buonanotte – or because they didn’t impress in their limited minutes, which was the case for Brighton & Hove Albion’s Carlos Baleba. Two players return to make up the numbers, but if they don’t impress in the domestic game they won’t last very long.

One thing we don’t do is punish players who were higher up the rankings too harshly for missing game time, which will be of some relief to one player from last week’s top five, but there’s still a fair amount of positional churn. Will that knock last week’s number one, Rico Lewis, off of his perch? Read on to find out…

10. Jack Hinshelwood – Brighton & Hove Albion & England Under-21s (⬇️3)

The Brighton utility man was in the top five a few weeks ago but his form has suffered a little since, and that downturn didn’t let up this week with an unusually flaky outing for England Under-21s against Ukraine. Starting as a right wing-back, he got a bit of a working over and was beaten in dangerous situations on a few occasions, although he liked typically comfortable on the ball at least. A cameo in an easy 7-0 win over Azerbaijan followed, but Hinshelwood didn’t have a great deal of work to do in a game that was long dead by the time he came on.

9. James McAtee – Manchester City & England Under-21s (re-entry)

McAtee is becoming a bit of a frustration for these rankings. He barely touches grass at the Etihad but every time he plays for the age group side he plays beautifully and scores a bucketload – three, this time, in two games, including an absolute stunning 20-yard free-kick against Ukraine which crashed in off the underside of the bar thanks to some fierce dip. He’ll most likely be back on the bench and out of the top ten next week, but in the meantime the rankings simply have to give him his flowers for his work with the Young Lions.

8. Liam Delap – Ipswich Town & England Under-21s (⬇️2)

Delap’s recent form for Ipswich Town is strong enough that we have decided not to knock him down too many pegs for a poor performance against Ukraine. The striker was often a little anonymous in the final third and failed to score with either of the two shots he did manage, and was rather ineffective when pressing off the ball, failing to cause problems and even committing three fouls as he tried and failed to chase possession down.

7. Destiny Udogie – Tottenham Hotspur & Italy (⬆️3)

The Tottenham Hotspur left-back was only a substitute for Italy’s matches this weekend but came on for about 20 minutes against both Belgium and Israel. He defended solidly in the first game, especially in one-on-one situations, and followed that up with an assist in the 4-1 win over Israel, pulling a ball back from the byline all the way to the edge of the area, where captain Giovanni di Lorenzo did the honours. Solid work given the limited minutes.

6. Kobbie Mainoo – Manchester United & England (⬇️1)

Injury forced Mainoo to withdraw from Lee Carsley’s Nations League squad over the past week, but as he’s once again been one of the few bright spots for a wayward Manchester United side, we haven’t hit his ranking too hard – especially because few of the players below him really earned the right to go above him in convincing fashion.

5. Yankuba Minteh – Brighton & Hove Albion & Gambia (RE)

Minteh started the season like a steam train, fell away rapidly, and now seems to be bouncing right back – and he smashes back our rankings after following up his goal against Spurs with some crucial work for his country in their back-to-back African Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Madagascar.

Granted, he didn’t actually mean the goal he scored in the first of the two games, but his wicked left-footed cross ended up beating everyone to find its way inside the near post – a vital goal which equalised and averted what would have been a somewhat shocking defeat. Gambia won the second game 1-0, with Minteh teeing Musa Barrow’s winner up, and thanks to the Brighton man their chances of making it to AFCON 2025 remain alive and well.

4. Levi Colwill – Chelsea & England (-)

No change of ranking for Colwill, who will mostly want to forget the game against Greece at Wembley due to the result – but without the Chelsea man, it may well have been a lot worse.

Whenever Greece came forward and threatened (which was far more often than it should have been), Colwill was usually the man who had to do the last-ditch defending, and he did it enough times to keep things respectable, most notably bailing out Jordan Pickford with a quite superb goal-line clearance with the score at 0-0. It wasn’t necessarily a great all-round performance by Colwill, but the chaos around him made it look rather worse than it was. He was slightly harshly benched for the win over Finland.

3. Rico Lewis – Manchester City & England (⬇️2)

Lewis loses top spot after a rather confused performance against Greece, in which he often seemed unclear as to exactly what his role was or what he should do with the ball when he got it – not that he was alone in having that problem.

He didn’t make too many genuine mistakes but was caught out of position repeatedly flitting between left-back and midfield and wasn’t able to support the attack in any meaningful way. His ten minutes in midfield against Finland were tidy enough, but hardly set the world on fire. Lewis doesn’t deserve the blame for the defeat at Wembley, but can’t exactly claim many plaudits, either.

2. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United & England Under-21s (⬆️1)

Given that England looked deeply unbalanced without a left-footed left-back to support the attack, one wonders whether new head coach Thomas Tuchel will turn to Hall at some stage – certainly, his work with the Under-21s won’t do much harm to his chances, as he was one of the best performers in the narrow win over Ukraine.

Hall shut down absolutely everything that was thrown at him down the Ukrainian right – not always by fair means, as he did conceded a couple of fouls – and was impressive with the ball, completing 66 passes from 70 tries and giving possession away just six times all night, which is a hugely impressive number. He was just as good with the ball at his feet too, and he created a couple of thoroughly presentable chances. A slightly shaky cameo in the dying minutes against Azerbaijan notwithstanding, this was yet another good week for the left-back.

1. Jhon Durán – Aston Villa & Colombia (⬆️1)

Durán has deservedly spent more weeks at top spot than anybody else this season, and even though he only played 45 minutes for his country this week he got himself back on the scoresheet once more thanks to a well-taken left-footed strike from just inside the area in an impressive 4-0 win over Chile.

The 20-year-old continues to score goals at a frankly ridiculous rate – on average he has been scoring 1.62 goals per game for Aston Villa this season, which borders upon the obscene – and the only real question is when one of the world’s most in-form and on-song strikers is going to be given 90 minutes. By anyone, club or country. It’s hard to imagine anyone on this kind of form being used as a substitute for much longer…