The Wonderkid Power Rankings: Man City, Bayern Munich and Barcelona stars dominate top ten

Welcome back to The Wonderkid Power Rankings, 3 Added Minutes’ weekly run-down of the best and most in-form Under-21s in the global game right now.

We’ll be saying a temporary farewell to a couple of players in the top ten this week due to injury – the supremely gifted Antonio Nusa missed Club Brugge’s last fixture with a back complaint, but more worrying is Brazilian übertalent Vitor Roque’s ankle ligament injury, which could keep him out for several months. We can only wish him the best for his recovery and hope that he doesn’t start bearing comparison to Ronaldo Nazário with his injury record as well as his evident ability as a striker.

But aside from players stuck on the treatment table, it was a good week for most of our regular top ten, with plenty of goals to chew over and some seriously impressive performances – but can Gavi, on searing form for the first time in a while, finally overtake regular number one Jude Bellingham? And how many Premier League starlets will make the rankings? Read on to find out…

10. Jamal Musiala – Bayern Munich (re-entry)

Back from injury and looking none the worse for wear, the Anglo-German tyro picked up an impressively tenacious assist against Manchester United in the Champions League last week, battling through two defenders and dealing well with a bobbling ball to tee up Serge Gnabry for his side’s second.

His minutes are still being managed as he makes his way back to full fitness, so he missed out on a chance to pad his stats in the 7-0 planking of VfL Bochum at the weekend, but there doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that a brief spell on the sidelines has done him too much harm.

9. Jérémy Doku – Manchester City (⬇️ from 6)

The Belgian winger was a little unfortunate to be the man sacrificed by Pep Guardiola after Rodri’s moment of madness and subsequent red card against Nottingham Forest, having played with plenty of fire in the first half.

As well as giving the Forest defence a few headaches with his fleet-footed runs and effortless ball control, Doku completed over 90% of his passes – a huge figure for a forward and the kind of statistic that will have Guardiola purring and Jack Grealish worrying about his spot in the starting line-up.

8. Lamine Yamal – Barcelona (non-mover)

Being relegated back to a substitute role doesn’t seem to have bothered the absurdly-gifted 16-year-old too much judging by his performance against Mallorca. In his 30 minutes or so on the field he gave the opposing backline palpitations with his mazy dribbling and lightning changes of pace, and won a penalty which was later overturned by VAR.

Given his age, it’s not a massive shock that he isn’t getting regular starts, but Raphinha will need to keep his impressive recent form going for a while if he wants to avoid warming the seats on the Nou Camp sideline because Yamal is seizing every chance he gets to impress at the moment.

7. Alejandro Baldé – Barcelona (⬆️ from 4)

Baldé had a rare bad game against Mallorca, struggling to get forward with his usual flair and finding the going a bit tougher than he’s accustomed to in his own team’s third of the field – but at least he wasn’t culpable for either of the goal Barça shipped in the 2-2 draw, and was no more than a horrified onlooker when Marc André ter Stegen generously provided the opening goal to the opposition.

He’s also having to deal with a genuine threat to his place in Marcos Alonso, and while the 19-year-old remains first choice for now, he was only a substitute in the thrilling 3-2 win over Celta Vigo on Saturday and needs to make sure he keeps his exceptionally high standards up if he wants to get 90 minutes time and again for the Blaugrana. And keep his place in this top ten, of course, which I’m sure he cares about immensely.

6. Joško Gvardiol – Manchester City (⬆️ from 9)

Gvardiol had perhaps his best game yet in a City shirt against Forest, proving an immovable object at the back even when the hosts were reduced to ten men and impressing once more with his control of the ball and economical use of possession.

If you want evidence of how important he’s already become to Guardiola’s tactical masterplan, he single-handedly accounted for 7.2% of the possession in the entire game which, needless to say, was considerably more than anybody else on the field. A perfect fit for one of the best teams in the world.

5. Mathys Tel – Bayern Munich (⬆️ from 10)

Since we last compiled this list, the thrilling young Frenchman has played three games and scored three goals, which is even more impressive when you consider that he only started one of the matches in question.

First there was his decisive goal against United, ghosting between two defenders to lash into the roof of the net. Then he picked up his side’s sixth in the rout of Bochum, casually lashing Harry Kane’s pass into the far corner of the goal when given too much room to swing his foot. And to cap it all off, he scored against lowly Preußen Münster in the DFB Pokal, bursting down a vacant channel to smash the ball across the ‘keeper and into the side netting. He’s now played 82 minutes plus stoppage time in the Bundesliga and Champions League this season – and scored four goals with an assist on top. Start him, Mr. Tuchel.

4. Xavi Simons – RB Leipzig (⬇️ from 3)

A rare but perhaps overdue quiet week from Simons, who has started his career in Germany off at a gallop but was bound to draw a blank sooner or later – this time failing to find the net in a 1-0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.

His deployment on the right wing may partly explain his becalmed performance, as he’s usually a number ten and a damned good one, but he found himself somewhat sidelined by his new role – as he was, to a certain extent, in the Champions League win over Young Boys last week. Likely to move back to a more central role sooner rather than later, one would think.

3. Florian Wirtz – Bayer Leverkusen (⬆️ from 5)

Wirtz’s gloriously effortless chipped finish against BK Häcken in the Europa League last Thursday, scored after his well-timed run saw him latch on to a lovely through ball, was the latest piece of evidence in the file marked “Florian Wirtz Is Just Lovely To Watch”. The file is not a slim volume.

He picked up an assist in the 4-0 win as well, and was typically central to his team’s attacking play in the routine 4-1 win over Heidenheim in the Bundesliga as well. Leverkusen look like they could be genuine title challengers this year, and Wirtz is a huge part of the reason why.

2. Gavi – Barcelona (non-mover)

Gavi couldn’t be in much better form of late, blowing away the cobwebs that had gathered at the back end of last year in serious style with a series of energetic and impressive displays. He’s become central to Xavi’s plans at Barcelona, and is starting to become the building block upon which the rest of the midfield is based.

His best moment of the past week was his assist for Barcelona’s late winner in their comeback win over Celta, an absolutely perfect angled cross exactly placed into the path of João Cancelo’s late burst into the box. Gavi would be top of the rankings in most weeks, and against most players. But there’s the small matter of some bloke called Bellingham in his way…

1. Jude Bellingham – Real Madrid (non-mover)

One week, Bellingham won’t score. One day, he’ll have a bad game. We may even have to consider moving him off of top spot. But that isn’t this week – sure, there wasn’t anything too tricky about the 94^th minute tap-in that earned his side a late win over Union Berlin in the Champions League, but he’s just in the kind of form where it would only ever be him who was in the right place at the right time to score. Everything he touches is turning to gold.

And while he didn’t register in the hugely disappointing 3-1 defeat to Atlético Madrid at the weekend he was still the best player in Real colours, getting involved in everything from midfield to attack and causing a huge number of headaches for Diego Simeone’s typically staunch defence. We did see a slightly uglier side to his game, with some judges suspecting that he should have been sent off for a rather overzealous late tackle on Ángel Correa, but he wasn’t so he won’t have to worry about losing his top spot because of a suspension, at least. One hell of a player, even if he could do with reining in some of his tackles a little bit.