The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Newcastle, Bournemouth & Spurs youngsters star in first Top 10 of 2025

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We rate the best young players in the Premier League, with Newcastle, Bournemouth and Spurs starlets making the latest Top 10.

After nearly a month in winter hibernation, The Wonderkid Power Rankings are finally back! Yes, it’s been four long weeks since we last updated our form-based countdown of the best young players in the Premier League, but we’re back once again and are going nowhere for the rest of the season.

Last time out, we left Newcastle United’s Lewis Hall in top spot after a string of consistently impressive performances, but an awful lot has happened since then – goals, assists and red cards have all come and gone, a few Under-21s have shone and others have gone right off the boil as the festive season took its toll on their form.

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It’s only appropriate, then, that we kick the New Year of talent tracking off with two brand new entries and a couple of returning favourites – but will we have a new number one? Read on to find out who comes out with the crown from our first Top 10 of 2025…

10. Archie Gray – Tottenham Hotspur (⬇️1)

Gray wasn’t signed to be a centre-half, but the precocious young utility player has been thrown in at the deep end thanks to Tottenham Hotspur’s injury crisis and has, by and large, performed pretty well. There have been times when he’s looked like a teenager playing out of position, and he got a real working over in the 6-3 league defeat to Liverpool, but he steadied his personal ship impressively after that and was rock solid when faced with the same opposition in the EFL Cup, making four combined tackles and interceptions, three clearances, and managing to avoid being beaten once on the ground as he helped his side to keep a clean sheet. There are signs of real maturity backing up that talent.

9. Tyler Dibling – Southampton (new entry)

The 18-year-old has been gradually working his way into the Saints first team over the course of the season and has now bagged three goals in his last three games even as the side around him struggles mightily. Granted, his strike against Crystal Palace might have been the easiest of tap-ins, and the opener against Swansea City in the FA Cup hardly any trickier, but he showed some impressive persistence to bag his second and seal a spot in the fourth round and his off-ball movement is coming along nicely. His emergence has been one of the few bright spots in a miserable season at St. Mary’s.

8. Liam Delap – Ipswich Town (re-entry)

The summer signing started life in Suffolk off at a stunning pace but became becalmed before Christmas, failing to score in six games even as his team’s form gradually improved – but while he had started to look rather wasteful in front of goal, he’s corrected course coolly enough of late, scoring from the penalty spot against both Chelsea and Fulham and setting up Omari Hutchinson for a massive win against the former. If he can get back to his best against teams from outside West London, Ipswich Town really will have a good chance of staying up.

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7. Jhon Durán – Aston Villa (⬇️5)

When we last wrote up the Power Rankings, the Colombian had bagged for three games on the bounce, and he extended that run with the opening goal against Manchester City with a wonderfully cool finish – but then he went and got himself sent off against Newcastle United and hasn’t played since. Normally, that would mean being booted out of the Top 10 entirely until he was back, but as he’s available again this week and it would be weird to omit him given the long break between lists, he can settle for a spot in the bottom half of the table as a nod to his achievements before seeing red.

6. Levi Colwill – Chelsea (⬆️4)

Chelsea, as a whole, have been pretty poor since we last checked in with their talented youngsters, and Malo Gusto plunges all the way out of the top five accordingly, but Colwill has actually been playing some of his best football of the season even while it all goes a bit wrong around him. The 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace provided a good example – four tackles and interceptions, five clearances and a blocked shot as he dealt with everything sent his way. He won every single ground and aerial duel in the 2-0 loss to Ipswich, too. In other words, it’s not Colwill’s fault.

5. Rico Lewis – Manchester City (⬆️1)

Lewis has been Mr. Consistency for Manchester City this season, continuing to play at almost exactly the same level regardless of what was going on around him. That comes with some flaws, and Lewis still needs to find ways to contribute in the final third if he wants to remain the first-choice midfielder in a Pep Guardiola system, but his reliability has given City something to work with.

He hardly ever misplaces the ball (in his last three games he has failed to complete just 11 passes), is always available as the man on, and rarely makes a rick in defence, proving to be tenacious and effective tracking back. He doesn’t have the all-round game of Rodri, by any reach of the imagination, but there’s plenty of room to be worse than the world’s official best player and still deserve praise.

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4. Dean Huijsen – Bournemouth (NE)

Had we been updating the ranking over the past four weeks, most of our column inches would have been spent raving about summer signing Huijsen, who has finally settled in since arriving from AS Roma and put in a couple of colossal performances over the Christmas period, perhaps most notably in the stunning 3-0 victory over Manchester United when he scored the opener with a fine angled header.

The goal was just the cherry on top of some serious hard graft, however. The 19-year-old Spaniard made six clearances, blocked three shots and forced four turnovers in that game, put up even bigger numbers against Crystal Palace the following week, and has continued to do much the same job for Bournemouth that Jarrad Branthwaite did for Everton last season – acting as an imposing physical presence who sweeps up everything coming over the top or in behind the defensive line. Huijsen is starting to look like a serious savvy signing.

3. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth (-)

It’s a Cherries double in the top five, which is a testament to both some smart work in the transfer market and the impressive coaching of Andoni Iraola – and Hungarian left-back Kerkez stays in third place after some steady and solid showings over the past few weeks, with his best outing coming at home to Everton.

It was his well-weighted back-post cross which teed David Brooks up for the only goal of that game, his dynamic movement and passing range which set off plenty of their most threatening moves, and his hard work in the defensive third which helped to keep the Toffees quiet. Granted, that last bit hasn’t been too challenging this season.

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2. Savinho – Manchester City (RE)

When City’s form fell off the side of a steep cliff, so too did summer signing Savinho’s. He started the season full of tricks, flicks and creative verve, and suddenly looked like he barely belonged on the field. Now, just as City start to wake up again, so too does the young Brazilian – one can wonder which is the cart and which the horse, but the results have been undeniably impressive over the last few weeks.

Since Christmas, he has racked up three assists and one goal in the league, and it was his rifled close-range finish and peachy cross for Erling Haaland which set City off on their way to the 2-0 win over Leicester City which marked the start of the recent turnaround. Oddly enough, the former Girona winger was actually rather quieter in the 8-0 win over Salford in the FA Cup, but perhaps he’d earned the right to a rest of some sort. If he can keep this form up, City may very well be back in business.

1. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (-)

Much has changed since we’ve been away, but Hall’s excellence remains largely unchanged. Where other youngsters’ form waxes and wanes, Hall keeps going, dangerous in attack and generally very solid at the back – indeed, the only game you could say he struggled in over the past month was the 2-0 win over Arsenal in the EFL Cup, when he was beaten on the ground a little too often, but even that ended up with a clean sheet.

If you’re looking for things to critique, he hasn’t registered a goal contribution since our last Top 10 and he’s created fewer chance than he normally does, but his crisp, precise passing and off-ball movement have still made him an excellent foil for Anthony Gordon. The Arsenal game aside, he’s been excellent in one-on-ones, he’s made the vast majority of his tackles and he even managed a crucial goal-line clearance against Manchester United. Week after week, Hall is simply very, very good and keeps his standards astonishingly high for a 20-year-old. New year, same old number one.

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