The Wonderkid Power Rankings: a new number one crowned as Newcastle and Leicester City starlets shine

Once again, we find ourselves casting our eyes over how the best young players in the Premier League have performed over the past week and trying to figure out which of them of them is the very best of the bunch – and bringing you the conclusions of our research via the Wonderkid Power Rankings.

Last week, Jhon Durán clung on to his top spot in the rankings for yet another week, but had the likes of Rico Lewis and Lewis Hall breathing down his neck. Will there be a change at the top spot this week? There certainly will be changes further down the top ten, with Malo Gusto dropping back out just one week after earning a place after a pretty indifferent display against Manchester United. That means space for one brand new entry…

10. Yasin Ayari – Brighton & Hove Albion (new entry)

Straight in at number ten, elegant young midfielder has quietly worked his way into Fabian Hürzeler’s first team and has put up some extremely strong showings. Saturday’s performance against Liverpool might have been his best yet, with some typically incisive passing, some very nice touches and some unexpectedly strong work off the ball – the Swede forced seven turnovers despite not being the kind of player who usually wins high volumes of one-on-ones. A name you’ll hear a lot more of as the season wears on.

9. Liam Delap – Ipswich Town (⬇️1)

The only player who’s really looked like a potential saviour for Ipswich Town so far, Delap looked lively and made plenty of adventurous, darting runs against fellow Premier League new boys Leicester City at the weekend but wasn’t able to turn movement and energy into a single actual shot – in fact, he was a bystander for most of the game despite what appeared to be his best efforts.

8. Levi Colwill – Chelsea (⬇️1)

It would be a stretch to say that the England international defender had been bad over the past couple of weeks, but while he seems to be reading the game as well as ever (as his three interceptions against Manchester United attest), he’s been a little bit less effective in one-on-one situations – this time around, he lost half of his aerial battles and won just two of five record ground duels. That uncharacteristic lack of ruggedness has cost him some spots in our rankings, but he hasn’t been all that far off colour.

7. Savinho – Manchester City (⬇️2)

The Brazilian winger drops a couple of places more due to a lack of game time than due to any errors on his part – indeed, he started his week by providing a beautifully-weighted cross for Matheus Nunes to score against Tottenham Hotspur in the EFL Cup before picking up a knock later in the game. A lack of match fitness, presumably, was why he didn’t get off the bench in the shock defeat to Bournemouth.

6. Milos Kerkez – Bournemouth (⬆️4)

Speaking of Bournemouth, their Hungarian left-back surges to his highest-ever placing in the Power Rankings after a brilliant outing against the champions, during which he let absolutely nothing past him at the back and picked up both of his side’s assists – beating Phil Foden to the byline to cut the ball back to Antoine Semenyo for the first, and then laying a superbly-judged cross into the pass of Evanilson to double the Cherries’ stunning lead. This was Kerkez’s best game yet.

5. Destiny Udogie – Tottenham Hotspur (⬇️1)

‘Best game yet’ is not a phrase we can use to apply to Udogie’s outing against Manchester City, when he looked a little flimsy on and off the ball and was beaten in close-quarters situations too easily, too many times. He was rather more solid in the Premier League win over Aston Villa, at least, still losing a couple of one-on-ones but rarely giving the ball away and keeping possession ticking over comfortably enough.

A respectable enough game to save his spot in the top five, at least for now, and even though he was poor in midweek that game did come off the back of a long run of some of his best and most well-rounded work yet. A brief blip rather than a red flag for his future form, we suspect.

4. Facundo Buonanotte – Leicester City (⬆️2)

In a week with more strong performances, Buonanotte probably wouldn’t have done enough to jump two places, but we’ve decided to reward him for an energetic and enterprising game against Ipswich which only lacked meaningful end product.

His sharp movement off the ball earned him two decent if not necessarily clear-cut chances and he did some good work in providing opportunities for others, too, although none of his more dangerous passes led to a real sitter. He did also have a cameo off the bench in the 5-2 EFL Cup thumping at the hands of Manchester United last week, but wasn’t able to get especially involved.

3. Rico Lewis - Manchester City (-)

With Lewis, who has now been in third place for a full month (surely some sort of Wonderkid Power Rankings record), we’re starting to realise that we may as well just copy and paste our description from week to week, because the work he does for Pep Guardiola’s side is astonishingly consistent.

Get ball. Pass ball. Complete pass. Move into space, do it again. That’s Lewis over and over, almost the Platonic ideal of the Manchester City player, knocking the ball to the next man, moving into a good area, keeping everything ticking. Over the course of his two matches this week, he misplaced just one pass. He still hasn’t figured out a way to be a factor in the final third, unlike Rodri, so we’re not quite ready to hand out the Ballon d’Or just yet, but Lewis has been putting in four-star performances and doing everything asked of him without missing a beat for a while now.

2. Jhon Durán – Aston Villa (⬇️1)

Finally, the Colombian’s reign – which has seen him take top spot for seven of the last eight weeks – is over. And frankly, we feel rather harsh in knocking him down a placing, because once again he found the back of the net, and it was yet another fine finish against Crystal Palace in the EFL Cup, quickly adjusting his body and rattling the ball in low with his left foot.

Nevertheless, it’s time for Durán to take a back seat, partly because this week’s number one was too good to not be given the throne, and partly because he was pretty poor in his usual super-sub role in the league – he only touched the ball eight times in the crushing defeat to Spurs, and gave it away four of them without taking a shot. A rare blot on his copybook, in fairness to a player whose scoring record is still pretty absurd this season.

1. Lewis Hall – Newcastle United (⬆️1)

The Newcastle United left-back has been banging on the door for a few weeks now and finally gets the title he deserves this time around after an absolutely magnificent game performance in the 1-0 win over Arsenal. Hall has been very, very good for weeks without getting too much attention in the national media – but that seems set to change.

His goal-line clearance was the big highlight but was only one particularly important intervention in a game in which he did just about nothing wrong. Four tackles, an interception, two blocked shots, eight clearances, some great work in the air and on the ground, and barely a foot put wrong in a big win at St. James’ Park. For the sake of balance we should probably note that he did make a mild mess of things to give Chelsea a shooting chance in the EFL Cup, but that doesn’t detract from an immaculate outing on Saturday. This is Hall’s first week on top of our rankings. It likely won’t be his last.