Teen sensations who soon faded
There's nothing that gets supporters' pulses racing quite like a talented teenager breaking into the first team and making an immediate impact. Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney and Nicolas Anelka are among those who have debuted young and gone on to enjoy excellent careers, but not every gifted prospect is able to maintain an upward trajectory.
Giuseppe Rossi (Manchester United)
Described by Alex Ferguson as the most natural finisher to come out of the Manchester United youth system since Paul Scholes, Rossi was expected to become a first-team regular at Old Trafford. He got off to a brilliant start by scoring against Sunderland on his Premier League debut, but the Italian was soon loaned out to Newcastle and Parma, before being sold to Villarreal in 2007.
Jose Baxter (Everton)
Baxter joined Everton at the age of six and consistently impressed coaches as he rose through the academy. Given that the forward had broken a number of the club’s youth records previously held by Wayne Rooney, Ian Rush and Michael Owen, there was significant excitement when he broke into the first team as the Toffees’ youngest ever player in 2008.
Further opportunities weren’t forthcoming, though, so Baxter rejected a new contract in 2012 and set his sights on a move to Crystal Palace – a deal which fell through and forced the Bootle-born attacker to sign for League One Oldham instead. Baxter later joined Sheffield United but was banned from football in 2015 after failing a drugs test, which the man himself blamed on a spiked drink.
Michael Bridges (Sunderland)
Bridges’ breakthrough at Sunderland in 1996/97 represented a rare bright spot in a disappointing season which saw the Black Cats demoted in 18th place. The striker only scored three times but impressed with the maturity of his displays, before helping the northeast club back into the top flight.
Leeds’ search for a successor to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who had joined Atletico Madrid, led them to Bridges, who scored 19 league goals in his debut season at Elland Road. Unfortunately for both player and club he never hit those heights again, leaving Leeds in 2004 and spending the next five years moving between lower-league sides.
Matthew Briggs (Fulham)
After catching the eye of first-team boss Lawrie Sanchez with his displays for Fulham’s reserve side, Briggs was handed his senior debut as a 16-year-old towards the end of 2006/07 – and is still the Premier League's youngest ever player. The left-back failed to make a single appearance for the Cottagers in the three subsequent seasons, however, and he was then sent out on four separate loan spells between 2010 and 2014.
Malcolm Christie (Derby)
The original Jamie Vardy, 18-year-old Christie was working part-time in a supermarket and playing for non-league Nuneaton Borough before being snapped up by Derby. He soon went from stacking shelves to scoring goals in the Premier League, making the net bulge on 12 occasions in 2000/01 – more than any other Rams player.
Carl Cort (Wimbledon)
A towering centre-forward who stood at 6ft 4in, Cort was the perfect fit for Joe Kinnear’s long-ball game at Wimbledon. The targetman broke into the first team in 1997/98 and instantly hit the ground running, scoring in the first minute as the Dons beat Newcastle 3-1.
Cort would join the Magpies following the capital club’s relegation in 2000, but a series of injuries and a failure to settle off the pitch meant he was never able to recapture his form on Tyneside. Cort later shone at Wolves, but subsequent spells at Leicester, Marbella, Norwich, Brentford and the Tampa Bay Rodwies were less successful.
Fabio da Silva (Manchester United)
The Da Silva twins, Fabio and Rafael, crossed the Atlantic to join Manchester United from Fluminense in 2007. The latter was the bigger success at Old Trafford, making 169 appearances compared to his brother’s 56, but there was little to choose between them when they first rocked up in the northwest of England.
In fact, it was Fabio who impressed most in the siblings’ first pre-season, but a shoulder injury delayed his competitive bow. The left-back finally made it into the first team in 2009/10 and went on to start the 2011 Champions League Final against Barcelona, but despite his lofty reputation as a teenager the Brazilian was only ever a bit-part player at United.
Mikael Forssell (Chelsea)
Signed from HJK in his native Finland at the tender age of 17, Forssell scored twice on his Chelsea debut against Oxford in the League Cup, before notching another goal in a Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest soon after. It looked as if the Blues had unearthed a real gem, but the arrival of Chris Sutton led to Forssell being shipped out for the first of five loan moves in 2000.
Danny Cadamarteri (Everton)
Cadamarteri was tipped for greatness when he scored four Premier League goals in the first three months of 1997/98, including a memorable strike against local rivals Liverpool. An 18-year-old who was emerging at around the same time as Reds hotshot Michael Owen, the Toffees academy product was quickly tied down to a long-term deal at Goodison Park.
Ritchie Humphreys (Sheffield Wednesday)
Humphreys was thrust into the first-team picture at Sheffield Wednesday in 1996 when injuries to David Hirst and Mark Bright saw him join the Owls’ pre-season tour of the Netherlands. After the striker scored three goals in two games, expectations went through the roof when an impressed onlooker by the name of Johan Cruyff unhelpfully compared him to Dutch legend Marco van Basten.
Humphreys transferred his pre-season form to the big stage when he netted three times in his first four Premier League games, including a superb chip against Leicester which brought him the Goal of the Month award for September. He wasn’t able to sustain his form, however, and Humphreys ended up spending most of his career in Leagues One and Two.
Adnan Januzaj (Manchester United)
Januzaj helped Belgium to a third-place finish at the World Cup in Russia and is currently strutting his stuff for Real Sociedad in La Liga, so it would be erroneous to claim he’s faded into obscurity. It is, however, fair to say that the winger hasn’t yet lived up to the hype which surrounded his first season at Old Trafford.
The 18-year-old was perhaps the only positive to come out of David Moyes’s stint as Manchester United manager, with Januzaj one of the team’s standout performers in the first half of the campaign. Things soon went downhill for the Belgian, who struggled on loan at Borussia Dortmund and Sunderland, but he now looks to be getting his career back on track in the Basque Country.
Francis Jeffers (Everton)
Jeffers made his professional debut at Old Trafford, a stage befitting his precocious talent. The teenager scored six goals in all competitions for Everton in 1999/00 and seven the following campaign, despite being limited to just 14 appearances due to injury problems.
The striker turned down a new deal at on Merseyside in 2001 and instead moved to Arsenal for £8m, with Arsene Wenger describing him as someone who was “obsessed with scoring goals”. Yet Jeffers scored only eight goals for the Gunners before moving to Charlton, where he also struggled. The one-time England international later played for eight clubs in England, Scotland, Australia and Malta.
Collins John (Fulham)
Not to be confused with former Fulham midfielder John Collins, the Dutch striker was an instant hit after joining the Cottagers from Twente in January 2004. The teenager bagged four goals in his first three games for the west Londoners, a terrific start which made his £600,000 transfer fee look like a bargain.
John’s steady progress continued until 2005/06, when he scored 11 Premier League goals and helped the Netherlands triumph at the European Under-21 Championship. But the sharp-shooter soon misplaced his shooting boots and duly lost his place in the Fulham team under Lawrie Sanchez – a setback from which he never really recovered. Still only 32, the Liberia-born forward was last spotted playing for USL side Pittsburgh Riverhounds in 2014.
Michael Johnson (Manchester City)
Manchester City may have finished ninth in the Premier League in 2007/08, but it was a campaign to forget for the club’s fans. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side brought the curtain down on the season with a dismal 8-1 defeat by Middlesbrough, while owner Thaksin Shinawatra was never far away from the headlines off the field.
The emergence of Johnson was a clear plus point, though, with the midfielder likened to England internationals Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard by former Three Lions boss Eriksson. Yet Johnson was unable to stay on the straight and narrow, as a combination of injuries and off-field misdemeanours saw his career unravel. The two-time England Under-21 international hasn’t played professionally since being released by City in 2012, and was last seen working as an estate agent in Urmston.
Mark Kennedy (Liverpool)
After catching the eye of scouts aplenty with his early displays for Millwall in the early to mid-1990s, Kennedy earned a dream £1.5m move to Liverpool. That fee made him the most expensive teenager in British football history, but it proved to be a poor investment by the Reds.
Federico Macheda (Manchester United)
Macheda had the debut every youngster dreams of, scoring the winner against Aston Villa in second-half stoppage time to keep Manchester United in pole position in the 2008/09 Premier League title race. The Italian striker then added another goal to his tally against Sunderland a week later, but he soon fell out of favour after Alex Ferguson refused to grant his wish of a loan move to Serie A.
Fran Merida (Arsenal)
Milan and Real Madrid were both keen on Barcelona prospect Merida in 2005, but Arsenal won the race for the 16-year-old’s signature. Two years later he made his debut as a substitute against Newcastle in the League Cup – the first of three appearances the youngster made in the competition that campaign.
A loan switch to Real Sociedad in December 2007 gave Merida a platform to showcase his skills and helped convince Arsene Wenger to hand the Spaniard a new contract in 2008, but he wasn’t able to make the final step up into the Gunners first team. Merida joined Atletico Madrid in 2010 but failed to make much of an impact; he can now be found playing for Osasuna in the second tier.
Freddie Sears (West Ham)
Notching a hat-trick against Millwall at any level is a guaranteed way to endear yourself to West Ham fans, with Sears’ treble for the club’s under-18s in 2007 bringing him to the attention of those on the Upton Park terraces. The homegrown striker was expected to become a first-team fixture in east London, particularly after he grabbed the winner against Blackburn in his maiden Premier League appearance.
James Vaughan (Everton)
Vaughan surpassed Wayne Rooney when he struck against Crystal Palace on his Everton debut at the age of 16 years and 271 days, becoming the youngster scorer in Premier League history. Comparisons with the then-Manchester United marksman were inevitable thereafter, but injuries checked Vaughan’s progress as he made just eight starts for the Toffees before joining Norwich in 2011.
Playing time was similarly hard to come by in East Anglia, with Vaughan playing just five top-flight matches for the Canaries before dropping down to the Championship with Huddersfield and Birmingham. After a prolific spell with Bury in League One, he’s now back in the second tier with Wigan.
Paolo Vernazza (Arsenal)
Vernazza rose through the ranks at Arsenal to earn a chance in the first team, featuring once during the 1997-98 title-winning campaign before scoring his one and only goal for the club against Coventry two years later.
But the midfielder was eventually sold to Watford in 2000 after failing to break into Arsene Wenger’s plans and spent three-and-a-half relatively successful years at Vicarage road before sliding down the English football pyramid, from Rotherham to Bishop’s Stortford.
Ben Thornley (Manchester United)
One of the other members of the class of’92, Thornley made his senior debut for United in February 1994 to kickstart what was supposed to be a long and successful spell at Old Trafford, with the likes of David Beckham and Nobby Stiles backing him to be a future star.
But a series of injuries stalled Thornley’s progress, not to mention the emergence of fellow left winger Ryan Giggs, and he was sent on loan to Stockport and Huddersfield before joining the Terriers permanently in 1998. After enjoying mixed fortunes in Yorkshire, Thornley had seasons at Aberdeen and Blackpool before his career petered out in the lower rungs of the English game.
Ravel Morrison (Manchester United)
Morrison’s return to the Premier League with Sheffield United this summer took many people by surprise but the newly-promoted side’s decision to take a punt on the midfielder speaks volumes for his natural ability.
Alex Ferguson regarded a teenage Ravel as "the best player he had seen at that age", according to Rio Ferdinand, but his highlight remains a wonderful solo goal for West Ham against Tottenham in October 2013. Several loan spells followed before a surprise move to Lazio gave him the chance of a fresh start, but Morrison failed to settle in Italy and was shipped out on temporary deals again, eventually ending up in Sweden with Ostersund before his summer switch to Bramall Lane.
Andy Turner (Tottenham Hotspur)
The world appeared to be Turner’s oyster when he became the Premier League’s youngest-ever goalscorer with a strike for Spurs against Everton aged 17 years and 166 days. His promising start to life at White Hart Lane continued as the winger notched further goals against Brentford, Manchester City and Oldham before the end of the 1992/93 campaign, helping Tottenham to eighth in the league and the FA Cup semi-finals.
