The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Everton & Chelsea stars storm into latest Top 10

After every weekend, our journalists watch the tape, comb through the stats and gather round for a suitably impassioned argument in the hope of agreeing the answer to a question that can be very difficult to answer – who is the best young player in the Premier League? The result is our weekly Wonderkid Power Rankings.

We put together a Top 10 of the best Under-21s in the top flight based not on hype or potential, but on their actual performances at the very highest level. Last Tuesday, Liverpool’s Jérémy Jacquet reclaimed his place at the top of our table after an outstanding game against Brighton & Hove Albion – but can he cling on after successive defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal? Or will a member of the chasing pack take his crown?

We’ve got two players dropping out of our Top 10 this week, Bournemouth’s Rayan and Aston Villa’s Ibrahim Mbaye, who worked their way in with much-improved form and an uptick in production only to draw a disappointing blank over the two appearances they each made over the past seven days. That means room for two returning starlets – let’s find out who’s in, who’s out, and who we believe is the most in-form youngster in the game right now.

10. Trey Nyoni – Liverpool (-)

It’s hard not to be impressed by how easy Nyoni has made the transition to first-team football look. The 19-year-old still has some issue in one-on-one situations against opposing ball carriers, and those issues did cause some headaches during the EFL Cup defeat to Chelsea, but that’s really the only strike against a very talented young player – his passing has been calm and composed and he’s reliably forcing turnovers (four in both of this week’s matches). The future looks very bright for Nyoni, and the present isn’t too shabby either.

9. Jack Hinshelwood – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬇️1)

Hinshelwood banked a lot of credit for his highly productive start to the season, but after two indifferent weeks in a row he’s suddenly clinging on to his place in our Top 10 for dear life. The versatile playmaker was largely ineffective on and off the ball during the midweek match against Manchester City, and was promptly dropped to the bench for the subsequent 1-0 win over the same opposition on Saturday – although he did put in a pretty energetic shift over the course of a relatively brief cameo in the second half, at least.

8. Harrison Armstrong – Everton (re-entry)

Armstrong slid out of our rankings a few weeks ago but never really performed poorly or strayed too far from the Top 10, and he returns after some very effective hard graft against Newcastle. Granted, Armstrong did miss a very presentable chance at St. James’ Park on Monday evening, but he’s in the team primarily for his tackling and for his work off the ball – and he won every single one-on-one duel he found himself in both in Monday’s win and during a substitute appearance at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in midweek. Where it mattered most, Armstrong was excellent.

7. Josh Acheampong – Chelsea (re-entry)

Another player who recently dropped out of the Power Rankings only to earn his place back in particularly prompt fashion. Acheampong was good against Liverpool in midweek and absolutely outstanding in the 2-0 win over Manchester United, when he forced a massive 10 turnovers, won several key tackles and cleared the ball off the goal line to prevent a certain goal. If he’s going to cut it as a right-back he could stand to improve his attacking output – especially his crossing – but the 20-year-old was superb at the back.

6. Myles Lewis-Skelly – Arsenal (⬇️1)

Our next few entrants in the Top 10 could all have dropped by more than a single place had the players directly below them done more to move up in the world, and while it would be unfair to say that Lewis-Skelly was bad during the shock EFL Cup defeat to Fleetwood Town, he wasn’t able to impose himself on the game as he might have wanted and did send a great chance wide from inside the six-yard box.

Score that, as he should have, and Arsenal would have avoided a humiliation. He was relegated to the bench for the Liverpool game, but did at least put himself about in energetic fashion after coming on, and looked suitably eager to atone.

5. Charalampos Kostoulas – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬇️1)

Kostoulas was rested for the first of Brighton’s two games at the Etihad, but was restored to the starting XI on Saturday only to draw his second consecutive blank – and while his form still sounds very impressive indeed taken from the start of the season, the young Greek forward has now only managed one goal since the last international break. As a result, he’s starting to slide down our rankings a little.

What made Saturday’s performance particularly frustrating is that he just couldn’t get himself into good areas against Manchester City. He ended the game without taking a shot at goal and having lost 10 of his 12 one-on-ones, testament both to his failure to beat defenders with the ball at his feet and to make a difference in the high press. A bad day, in the end, albeit against a very good defence.

4. Josh King – Fulham (⬇️1)

Much like Kostoulas, King’s form doesn’t look too hot when you look at it solely after the last break, and he has one assist (and no goals) since then. The productivity is drying up a little, even if he remains a dynamic presence in Fulham’s attack.

He could well have got on the scoresheet against Aston Villa on Saturday were it not for a bad first touch which allowed Zion Suzuki to come out and smother the ball, but he also struggled to force his way past Villa’s defenders and often cut an energetic but ultimately frustrating figure. King has had a tremendous start to the season, but will need to sharpen up again swiftly if he wants to stay in our top five.

3. Luka Vušković – Brighton & Hove Albion (⬆️2)

While it might not have been a particularly brilliant week for Hinshelwood or Kostoulas, it was pretty good for Brighton as a whole given that they earned a very impressive win over Manchester City shortly after their second string took the same side to penalties in the EFL Cup – and Vušković was among the players who made Saturday’s victory happen.

The Croatian put in perhaps his best performance since the break, both on and off the ball, and the stats make for fairly remarkable reading: Five turnovers, four interceptions, two blocked shots, and so many successful runs forward that he earned 110m of territory all by himself. It’s pretty tough to come out on top against Erling Haaland. Vušković did it.

2. Jérémy Jacquet – Liverpool (⬇️1)

Some statisticians seem to have rather cruelly credited Jacquet with a mistake in the build-up to Arsenal’s decisive goal at Anfield on Sunday, when we were all in agreement that Alisson was really at fault for his bad pass – but given that the Frenchman also managed to get caught the wrong side of Bruno Guimarães as the Gunners queued up to score the subsequent, we can’t say that the 21-year-old was entirely free of blemishes.

The goal aside, Jacquet was solid but certainly not as noticeable as he is when he’s at his imposing best, and he didn’t really have enough time to achieve anything of note against Chelsea in the EFL Cup, when he came on as a late substitute and barely had any defending to do. A slightly subpar week for Jacquet then, perhaps, and enough to cost him top spot.

1. Johan Manzambi – Aston Villa (⬆️1)

All of which means that Swiss sensation Manzambi has reclaimed his crown, earning a second week at the top of our Power Rankings after teeing up Nicolas Jackson’s opening goal against Fulham over the weekend with a nicely-placed through ball.

Manzambi is now on two goals and two assists in five games since the break and while he wasn’t necessarily at his very best against Fulham – he was his usual boundlessly energetic self but didn’t always turn hard work into tangible chances – that’s the kind of form that earns first place. His impact on Aston Villa’s season has already been immense, and the visible difference between the team with and without him remarkable given his age. We suspect this won’t be his last week at the top of our little table.