For some reason, February 2018 is the month where a lot of outlets have decided to do lists of the most promising players, and Gazzetta dello Sport have ranked the top 98 footballers below the age of 20 (meaning they were born in or after 1998).
Unsurprisingly, Kylian Mbappé comes in at number one, with Christian Pulisic second.
Jadon Sancho, who left Manchester City’s academy to get game time at Borussia Dortmund, is 15th, but to find the first English talent currently playing in England, you have to go some way down the list.
Coming in at 34th is Tottenham’s Marcus Edwards, currently on loan at Norwich City.
The 19-year-old has yet to feature for the Canaries, but that is allegedly due to the fact he’s recovering from a ‘niggling back injury’, and should be back in training soon.
For Gazzetta dello Sport, this loan away from Tottenham could be telling, but the fact they’ve put him ahead of the likes of Phil Foden and Manchester United’s Angel Gomes shows how highly rated Edwards is.
The Italian newspaper offer two opinions on the forward, one being that ‘if he was Brazilian, he would be worth €70-80m’, while the other, more negative, has them question ‘if he doesn’t play, there must be something fishy’.
Making just one appearance for Tottenham so far, getting some first-team football under his belt, which would be even more difficult at Wembley these days with the arrival of Lucas Moura, is imperative.
If it works out for him at Norwich City, then who knows where he might end up in future lists, although he’d probably end up playing under Mauricio Pochettino by then.
