The Wonderkid Power Rankings: New Wolves & Man City entries as we rank the best youngsters in the top flight

Every week, we comb through the film, tot up the stats, throw in a dash of opinion, and come up with our best attempt at figuring out who the best young player in the Premier League is right now, based on their form over the last few weeks – but this week, it was a little trickier than usual.

Bluntly, this wasn’t a great week for the top flight’s young guns, and quite a few of last week’s Top 10 struggled to live up to the level of recent performances – there were no goals, no assists, and few standouts. Throw in the fact that a fair few promising players are injured, and this was not the easiest edition of the Wonderkid Power Rankings to compile.

Still, we’ve got to see if anyone can challenge Bournemouth defender Dean Huijsen, who has held top spot for the past two weeks – and in the process, we’re saying goodbye to two members of last week’s rankings in the shape of Kobbie Mainoo, who has started to look a little lost again after a good outing in the Europa League a couple of weeks ago, and Liam Delap, who has now aged out of our Under-21s only rankings. Happy birthday, Liam, but also goodbye. Anyway, on with this week’s Top 10…

10. Nico O’Reilly – Manchester City (new entry)

One problem we had this week was that most of the better young players haven’t been playing much of late, which makes it tough to say they’re ‘on form’ – so we’re giving a nod to a youngster who shone on a rare start in the shape of O’Reilly, who stood in at left wing-back in the FA Cup against Leyton Orient and was arguably the best player on the pitch. Solid in defence and a bright creative spark going forward, he generated a couple of very good chances which his team-mates probably should have taken.

Had they done so, a rather rickety afternoon in London might have been more comfortable. We’ll be pleasantly surprised if O’Reilly gets enough minutes to remain in our rankings, but we wanted to give him a nod for a really good day’s work while we wait for more regular starters to earn a place.

9. Ethan Nwaneri – Arsenal (-)

There would be a good argument for dropping Nwaneri out of the Top 10 most weeks because he showed his inexperience and limitations in the 2-0 EFL Cup semi-final loss to Newcastle in midweek, but he’s been impressive enough of late (and other players sufficiently unimpressive) that he hangs on. This was one he’ll want to learn from, however – none of his nine crosses found an Arsenal player, he rarely came out on top when trying to beat Lewis Hall on the run, and generally got involved without any end product after coming on as an early sub for the injured Gabriel Martinelli. Given his age, he’ll have the odd bad week, and this was one of them.

8. Rodrigo Gomes – Wolverhampton Wanderers (NE)

Another brand new entry, and one earned over time rather than through a single sparkling performance – although he was Wolves’ best creative threat in the hard-fought 2-0 FA Cup win over Blackburn Rovers. No goals or assists this time, and his end product needs to increase, but his passing was superb and he drove Wolves forward time and again. He also put in a high-energy shift off the ball when tracking back, and although he was beaten a couple of times on the run when Blackburn counter-attacked, there were so positive signs that his all-round game is improving. The summer signing, who had an excellent pre-season but took a while to warm up once the real action started, is gradually getting more minutes under Vitor Pereira and is starting to look like a very bright prospect.

7. Lucas Bergvall – Tottenham Hotspur (⬇️2)

The young Swede has been one of the few bright spots in Spurs’ recent run of rubbish form, but even he couldn’t come out of another difficult week smelling of roses – he was only on the pitch for the last half-hour of the 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool (doing little wrong but failing to influence a lost cause) but had a fairy rough ride as a start in the 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa. He was decent on the ball at Villa Park, as he always is, but struggled in his defensive duties, committing four fouls and being dribbled past three times as he allowed attacks to get past him. He’s proven that he can be much better than that.

6. Savinho – Manchester City (-)

We’re really struggling to figure out how to rank Savinho, a tricksy winger who tries and fails a lot but also generates some of Manchester City’s best chances – and that’s how it went again in the dicey win over League One Leyton Orient. He created a couple of great chances, at least one of which should probably have been put away, and never failed to try and beat his man, but even defenders from two divisions lower managed to shut him down or send him down blind alleys pretty often and he lost possession more often than he threatened. Watching the former Girona winger is becoming something of a rollercoaster, but there is still enough end product not to drop him down the ranks, especially in a week where those below him didn’t do much to earn a higher place.

5. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal (⬆️2)

One of the few Arsenal players who played well at St. James’ Park in midweek (Arsenal had a weekend off after being knocked out of the FA Cup early), the young left-back is really starting to look like a long-term starter for Mikel Arteta, and while the team crumbled around him he rarely put a foot wrong.

Lewis-Skelly came out on top in the vast majority of his ground duels, his tackling was spot on, and while he did miss an extremely good chance for a consolation goal right at the death, finishing chances isn’t really meant to be his job – not that he struggled on that score against Manchester City last week. A good outing for at least one of the eleven Gunners on the pitch.

4. Mateus Fernandes – Southampton (⬇️2)

The Portuguese midfielder has been hugely impressive of late, but was some way from his best as the Saints were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Burnley over the weekend.

Fernandes has looked like a do-it-all midfielder over the past month or two, but against the Clarets his passing was a little below par with his killer balls missing their targets, he tried seven crosses without connecting with a team-mate, gave up a couple of fouls when trying to deal with opposing midfielders coming forward and didn’t complete a dribble. For a fine passer who typically does strong work off the ball and can carry the ball dangerously, this was a definite down week.

3. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth (-)

Kerkez might have slipped a place or two most weeks, as he was unusually poor with the ball in the win over Everton, completing just 56% of his passes, missing with all of his crosses (a recurring theme this week, apparently) and trying seven long balls which all went straight to the opposition or out of play.

Luckily, his defensive work was better, so he sticks around in the top three without much of a challenge from those further down our list. He didn’t make every tackle, but his work in behind sweeping up deep passes was impeccable and he got the ball when it counted most. Not Kerkez’s best outing, but not bad enough for his ranking to drop in a bad week for most of the Top 10.

2. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (⬆️2)

Hall, who has enjoyed more weeks as our number one than any other player, climbs back up as he put a relatively weak run of form behind him against Arsenal, dealing with Nwaneri (and, for the first part of the game, Martinelli) well for large periods and providing more impetus going forward than he has in his last few games - and unlike so many of other players this week, he actually managed to complete his crosses.

He had what could have been a dicey moment tracking back to cover a Kai Havertz run one-on-one after Newcastle went 2-0 up but managed to avoid giving away a foul when he would have been the last man, and the German wasn’t convinced the referee got the decision right – but Hall survived that and generally put in a sturdy performance down the left flank. Better from both Hall and his club, who are closing in on another shot at snapping their long trophy-free streak.

1. Dean Huijsen – Bournemouth (-)

Make it three weeks at the top now for the Spanish centre-back, who put in a rock-solid display in the 2-0 win over Everton in the FA Cup to help keep the Cherries in contention for silverware – and with the way they’re playing right now, who’d bet against them?

This wasn’t necessarily a remarkable outing for Huijsen, largely because his work consisted of dealing with crosses and long passes over the top and he was almost never challenged one-on-one – in fact, the stats suggest that he didn’t have a single tackle to make all match. But he did the work he was asked to do well, and nobody else did enough to challenge him for top spot, so one of the most impressive defenders in the league over the last two months keeps hold of the crown. Let’s hope somebody, anybody, can put the pressure on next time out…