Ronaldo, Owen, Sterling: 11 best PL teenage sensations ranked after Nwaneri debut

Who is the best teenage sensation in Premier League history?

Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Owen and Raheem Sterling are all famous examples of players that burst onto the scene. Likewise, Wayne Rooney and Robbie Fowler.

But after Ethan Nwaneri made history on Sunday and became the youngest person to ever feature in an English top-flight match aged just 15 years and 181 days old, we thought it would be fitting to identify the very best.

So, with that in mind, we’ve picked out the top 11 teenage sensations in Premier League history and ranked them from 11-1 – check out our findings below.

Pep Guardiola’s golden boy, Foden’s debut in November 2017 was followed up with a near incomparable level of hype.

Five years on, and it turns out the hype was more than justified given Foden has won back-to-back Young Player of the Season awards in 2020/21 and 2021/22.

A truly stunning player and the only reason he’s not pushing the top placings is because both of those awards came after his 20th birthday.

Nobody would have predicted that Ronaldo would go on to scale the heights he has done when he first joined United as a scrawny 18-year-old.

But it was clear to all that he was gifted, if just a little rough around the edges and he would even wind his teammates up at times with his overzealous tricks and showboating.

Nevertheless, Ronaldo began to show the first signs of the all-conquering star he would go on to become as he approached his 20s, chipping in frequently with goals and improving his overall gameplay.

Arsenal became the first of a host of Premier League clubs that had Anelka on their books at some point across the well-travelled Frenchman’s career.

Fortunately for them, they almost certainly saw the best of him.