February 20 – Five players at English clubs, two of them in the Championship, make the top 50 list of European U20 players with the best career prospects, according to a ranking compiled by the CIES Football Observatory.
Everton’s Tom Davies tops the list of players in England in seventh place and getting a five star ranking from the CIES statisticians. Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon also gets a five star ranking in tenth position and as the youngest player is the only player born in 2000 to make the top 50.
Leeds United’s Ronaldo Viera is in 20th position and get a four star rating, while Crystal Palace’s Timothy Fosu-Mensah in 32nd and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in 41st bith get three stars.
CIES looked at U20 players from 22 European competitions to identify those with the best career prospects. Minutes played by each footballer were weighted according to the sporting level of leagues and the results achieved by employer clubs.
“The five-star prospect category includes ten players who should be able to establish themselves in the very best European teams. In the top three positions are Gianluigi Donnarumma, Alban Lafont and Kylian Mbappé,” say the authors.
Eighteen footballers make up the four-star category list and CIES rates them as having “a concrete possibility to spend the big part of their career in the most competitive European championships. Three-star prospects also are in a favourable position to stay or reach the highest levels of the football pyramid.”
The CIES research team have developed the ranking model to compare talents across leagues on an objective basis and makes the analysis available to club scouts. Last season’s rankings are accessible here.
See the ranking at http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2017/215/en/
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