The Premier League is obviously richly competitive, not as an entire division, with a huge gulf in class between the top and bottom teams, but in little pockets throughout the table, meaning clubs are inherently risk averse.
Oftentimes, the result of that can be a lack of opportunities for younger players particularly from clubs academies who are untested and potentially error-prone, in favour of expensively purchased but more experienced imports.
There are exceptions though, naturally, when it comes to clubs who are willing to take that risk, clubs who are forced into taking that risk possibly through injuries and young players who are so good they simply leave their clubs with no options but to play them. Even with a youngster as phenomenally talented as Callum Hudson-Odoi, first team opportunities – particularly in the league – have really been at a premium, and a number of Premier League clubs are secretly rather fearful that Jadon Sancho’s success at Borussia Dortmund could spark a wave of English teenagers trying their hand overseas.
All seven of the players featured in this video were 16 at the time of their Premier League debuts, with a 15-year-old yet to turn out in the division since it’s rebranding in 1992.
Here are the 7 youngest Premier League debutants: Where are they now?
7. Gary McSheffrey – Doncaster Rovers Youth Coach
The only one of the seven youngest Premier League players that is no longer playing in 2019, Gary McSheffrey’s first Premier League appearance came in February 1999. Aged 16 and 198 days at the time, it made him the youngest player to have played in the Premier League, a record he would hold for the next four years.
McSheffrey’s debut came with his boyhood club Coventry City, and the talented left winger did spend the majority of his career with the Sky Blues, albeit in two separate spells. He made 162 appearances for the club as a youngster, before a move worth more than £2 million to Birmingham City. Following four years at St Andrews, the technically gifted wide man returned to Coventry for a further 119 appearances, before seeing out his career with the likes of Chesterfield, Scunthorpe and Eastleigh.
He’s now back at another one of his former clubs, Doncaster Rovers, where he works as an under-18’s coach. Having initially hung up his boots in 2018, McSheffrey did make a smattering of appearances for Frickley Athletic last season, but it’s unclear whether he will do so again next season.
6. Rushian Hepburn-Murphy – Aston Villa
Rushian Hepburn-Murphy of Aston Villa during the Pre-Season Friendly match between Shrewsbury Town and Aston Villa at Montgomery Waters Meadow on July 21, 2019 in Shrewsbury, England.
Aston Villa have quite an impressive academy and they are a club that will give young players a chance if they’re good enough. Rushian Hepburn-Murphy is one such case, having made his debut as a replacement for Christian Benteke in March 2015, aged 16 years and 176 days. That made him the second youngest player in Aston Villa history, and their youngest of the Premier League era.
It also makes him the sixth youngest Premier League debutant in history, but the youngsters career hasn’t really taken off in the four-and-a-half years since then. Now aged 20, he has added just 14 first team appearances at Villa Park since his debut against Sunderland, and he only registered four league appearances as the club won promotion from the Championship last season.
He’s still a real talent though, who Villa rate highly, and he has represented England at under-16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 level. Currently being linked with a loan move to Tranmere Rovers at the time of this recording, it would make sense for him to get out on-loan now that he is 20, try to get some serious game time and some goals under his belt and reassess his situation at Villa Park next summer.
5. Jose Baxter – Plymouth Argyle
Everton staff described Jose Baxter as being “better than Wayne Rooney” at the age of 16, but nine years on from the Bootle-born midfielders Toffees debut, his career has been a bit of a wild ride. He broke into the first team and made his Premier League debut aged 16 and 191 days, younger than both Wayne Rooney and James Vaughan, and he later became the youngest player ever to start a game for the club.
A few years on though, Baxter wasn’t getting as much game time as he felt he deserved, and he rejected a contract offer from his boyhood club. By this stage, there were few comparisons with Rooney, and more comparisons with teenager superstars who had failed to live up to their potential. A failed trial at Crystal Palace was followed by a move to Oldham, where Baxter had a barnstorming season and scored 13 goals in 39 games in League One. He joined Sheffield United for £500,000 the following summer.
After two good seasons in Yorkshire, Baxter failed a drugs test and was suspended by the club. The FA handed him a five-month suspension for testing positive for ecstasy, and in August 2016 he was banned for a further 12 months after testing positive for cocaine use. He was released, and after a year out of football, Everton often him a short-term contract at Goodison. He then made another return to a former club, this time Oldham, and the 27-year-old only recently joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on a free transfer.
4. Aaron Lennon – Burnley
Aaron Lennon of Burnley during the pre-season friendly match between Burnley and OGC Nice at Turf Moor on July 30, 2019 in Burnley, England.
Aaron Lennon was a teenage sensation who set a number of records whilst coming through the youth ranks at Leeds United. He became the youngest footballer to have their boots sponsored at the age of 14, which seems a little bit mental, before becoming the youngest debutant of the Premier League era aged 16 years and 129 days, beating Gary McSheffrey’s record.
A dangerous and direct right winger with searing pace, Lennon didn’t just get a token appearance like some of the players in this seven, he was there to stay. He became a regular at Leeds over the next 18 months, before a £1 million move to Tottenham in 2005. Lennon spent the next 10 years with Spurs, registering some 364 appearances, and winning 21 caps for England. Whether or not he lived up to his potential is a matter of debate, but making that many Premier League appearances for a very decent Tottenham side is not to be sniffed at.
He joined Everton in 2015, and subsequently Burnley in January 2018. Lennon has been quite outspoken with regards to mental health problems after he was sectioned back in 2017, and in the autumn of his career now at the age of 32, it would be great to see him have a barnstorming season next term. He has had an impressive pre-season, but the fact that Dwight McNeil is still at the club could really limit his game time.
3. Isaiah Brown – Chelsea
Serial loanee Isaiah Brown is the third youngest debutant of the Premier League era, having made his West Brom league debut at the age of 16 years and 117 days in a 3-2 defeat to Wigan Athletic back in 2013. West Brom turned down bids from Chelsea for the talented teen, but eventually he just agreed terms with the London club individually and the fee was set by a tribunal.
So displeased were West Brom with the fee, they considered scrapping their impressive category 1 academy as the fees they received when top clubs poached their best young players wasn’t covering the cost of running the academy. He was promoted into the Chelsea first team along with Ruben Loftus-Cheek in January 2015, and Jose Mourinho said he should be blamed if Brown didn’t become a full English international whilst he was Chelsea manager.
Well, we’re looking at you Jose, since it’s been three-and-a-half years since the Portuguese boss was dismissed by the Blues, and Brown has still only registered one senior appearance, and unsurprisingly, there has been no England cap from Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce or Gareth Southgate. Remarkably versatile but most commonly deployed in attacking midfield, Brown has turned out for Vitesse, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Brighton and Leeds on-loan from Chelsea. The best of those spells was the one at Huddersfield, and Brown sustained a nasty ACL injury whilst at Brighton. He is still at Chelsea, now aged 22, but he’s expected to be loaned out once again this summer following a disappointing stint at Leeds.
2. Matthew Briggs – Maldon & Tiptree
Matthew Briggs of Guyana during the Group D 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup match between Guyana v Panama at FirstEnergy Stadium on June 22, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio.
When Matthew Briggs made his Premier League debut as a 77th minute substitute for Fulham against Middlesbrough back in 2007, aged 16 years and 65 days, he became the youngest player in the Premier League era. He held that crown for some 12 years, and by the time it was beaten, a 28-year-old Briggs was playing semi-professionally for Maldon & Tiptree in the Isthmian League North Division, the eighth tier of English football.
Briggs had to sit a GCSE exam the day after he made his debut, but it would be more than three years before he played for the Cottagers again. It was always assumed that Briggs would kick on and become a regular next season, and then the season after that, and so on. He went out on-loan to Leyton Orient, Peterborough United, Bristol City and Watford, before joining Milwall on a free transfer, where he went out on-loan again -this time to future club Colchester United.
It has mostly just been a steady decline down the footballing pyramid for the former England under-21 international, who made one appearance for Barnet in the National League before dropping down all the way into the eighth tier with Maldon & Tiptree for the 2018-19 season. The move came about since the Essex minnows are managed by Wayne Brown, who worked with Briggs at Colchester. Following a brief stint working on a construction site, Briggs played a starring role and won the Player of the Year award at Maldon & Tiptree last season, and he’s still hoping he can work his way back up the footballing ladder.
1. Harvey Elliott – Liverpool
Matthew Briggs’ 12 year reign as the Premier League’s youngest player was brought to an end by another Fulham player. Harvey Elliott, who was born in 2003, made his Fulham debut in the EFL Cup at the age of 15, but it wasn’t until after his 16th birthday that he got his first appearance in the Premier League. He came on as an 88th minute substitute for the Cottagers in a routine defeat away at Wolves, aged 16 years and 30 days, beating Briggs’ record by a little over a month.
A creative wide player with quick feet and real invention to his play, he registered a second appearance for Fulham not long after, and soon he was the subject of a transfer battle. Real Madrid and PSG were linked, but just last week, the teenager agreed a deal with Liverpool that is expected to cost the Reds around £9 million in compensation.
It seems unlikely that he will feature for Liverpool in the league next season, but he is already representing England at under-17 level, and clearly has a bright future in the game if he has a bit of luck and manages to handle the whirlwind of fame and attention he is receiving at such a young age.
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