The Player Ratings Thread 2025/26

[pineapple stu]

Another update, including the third round of the League Cup with some random names. Bit of a trend of players dropping down to the bench in recent weeks - Bazunu, McAteer, Taylor, Vata, Abankwah, Ferguson, Hodge...

Premier League
Spurs 1-1 Wolves - Doherty 6.6 (taken off at half-time - not sure why; seemed to do ok, and hit the woodwork)
Man City 5-1 Burnley - Cullen 6.7 (their highest rating bar the guy who scored)
Brentford 3-1 Man Utd - Kelleher 8.4 (man of the match, and saved a penalty of course), Collins 6.2 (booked for giving away the penalty in the first place)

Championship
West Brom 1-1 Leicester - Molumby 6.1, Johnston 6.7
Wrexham 1-1 Derby - McClean an unused sub
Swansea 1-1 Millwall - Idah 5.9 (last 10 only), Emakhu 6.9, Smallbone 6.5
Coventry 3-0 Birmingham - Cashin 6.3 (brought on just before half-time in a reshuffle when Birmingham had a player sent off)
Ipswich 2-1 Portsmouth - O'Shea 7.3, Szmodics 7.1, McAteer 6.2 (last 15 only), Taylor an unused sub
Oxford 0-1 Sheffield United - McGuinness 7.7 (man of the match), Ogbene 6.9 (and an assist), Cannon 6.0 (last 15 only), Barry an unused sub
Charlton 3-0 Blackburn - Coventry 7.5, McLoughlin an unused sub
Watford 2-1 Hull - Abankwah and Vata unused subs, Egan 6.5
Stoke 1-1 Norwich - Lawal 6.6, Bonham an unused sub
Southampton 1-1 Boro - Manning 6.5, Azaz 6.4, Bazunu an unused sub, Browne 6.3 (last 30 only)
Sheffield Wednesday 1-1 QPR - Ategbayo 6.3 (last 15 only), Dunne 7.1
Preston 0-0 Bristol City - Sykes 6.5, Knight 6.4, Armstrong 6.0 (last 5 only)

SPL
Celtic 0-0 Hibs - Scales 7.3, O'Hora 7.0, McGrath 6.4 (taken off after 35 minutes - presume injured?)
St Mirren 1-0 Dundee - Phillips 8.1 (scored, and man of the match), Idowu 7.1, Sobowale and O'Hara unused subs
Falkirk 2-2 Hibs - O'Hora 6.7, McGrath 8.2 (and scored)
Dundee United 2-0 Aberdeen - Molloy an unused sub
Hearts 3-0 Falkirk - McEntee 7.1
Dundee 0-1 Killie - Brown 7.2

Other
Roma 2-0 Verona - Ferguson 6.2 (last 30 only)
Strasbourg 1-2 Marseille - Omobamidele 5.9 (last 5 only)
Angers 0-2 Brest - Jauny an unused sub
AZ 2-2 PEC - MacNulty 6.6
Volendam 2-1 PEC - MacNulty 6.1
Santa Clara 1-2 Tondela - Hodge 5.9 (last 25 only)
Konyaspor 2-1 Basaksehir - Ebosele 6.3 (one of two players taken off at half-time)

Europa League
Nice 1-2 Roma - Ferguson 5.9 (last 20 only)
Red Star 1-1 Celtic - Scales 7.0
Ferencvaros 1-1 Viktoria Plzen - O'Dowda 6.9

League Cup
Lincoln 1-2 Chelsea - Collins 5.9 (last 20 only)
Wolves 2-0 Everton - Doherty 7.2, Travers 6.3, O'Brien 7.1, Coleman 6.2
Liverpool 2-1 Southampton - Manning 6.8
Burnley 1-2 Cardiff - Robinson 7.6 (and scored)
Wrexham 2-0 Reading - McClean 6.7, O'Mahony 6.0, Ryan 6.1 (subbed on just before half-time)
Wigan 0-2 Wycombe - Adeeko 6.1, Costelloe 5.5
Barnsley 0-6 Brighton - Connell 6.5, Farrugia 5.7
Newcastle 4-1 Bradford - Murphy 6.1 (last 5 only)
Huddersfield 0-2 Man City - Roughan 6.4
Spurs 3-0 Doncaster - Lawlor 6.7, Grehan 6.3
Port Vale 0-2 Arsenal - Curtis 6.5, Paton 6.1


So very good weeks (8.3+) for Kelleher
Good weeks (7.3-8.2) for O'Shea, McGuinness, Coventry, Scales, Phillips, McGrath, Robinson
Poor weeks (5.3-6.2) for Collins, Molumby, MacNulty, Coleman, O'Mahony, Ryan, Adeeko, Costelloe, Farrugia, Paton
And very poor weeks (<5.3) for no-one

[passinginterest]

There really is a worrying trend of players being dropped and very few showing any kind of consistent good form.
Scales seems to be one of the most consistent but not likely to start anyway. Kelleher has been mostly positive, although he was very weak for the goal conceded at the weekend, but balanced it with the penalty save. Coventry seems to be putting his hand up for a call, but he's another that's a solid midfielder but lacks mobility and probably isn't much of a difference to any of the others we've seen recently. Collins has been really poor in his last few games, lucky not to be sent off conceding the penalty and I feel like he might be in danger of being dropped if he wasn't captain for both club and country. Good to see Smallbone back, he seems to have slightly more about him than most of the other options in the middle. The only other player we haven't really seen, but is starting a lot in the Championship is Emakhu, but we've got a lot of similar players ahead of him. Early season with Parrot flying and a lot of staters was looking so positive, it started going wrong with Parrot's injury and seems to be getting worse and worse since the international break. It's very worrying.

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, that's roughly the way I see it alright.

We seem to have four good players - Kelleher, Collins, Parrott and Ferguson - but each of those is flawed. (Maybe O'Brien is a fifth) Kelleher is a Champions League winner, but he's only starting into his first season as first choice now, pushing 27, and he hasn't been pulling up trees yet this season (hopefully the Man Utd game gives him and Brentford confidence now). Collins as you say has ropey form - especially at international level. Ferguson is one of the top-scoring teenagers in Premier League history, but that was two years ago now, and Parrott is injured.

Beyond that, it's a sea of meh, and I don't really see where the next player to change that is coming from. I think it's fair to say Coventry isn't necessarily an improvement on Cullen/Knight/Molumby. Emakhu did jump out by seeming to make more of an impact than Idah in the Swansea v Millwall game - but what is he? A forward with one goal in 60 games for Millwall? That's worse than Armstrong (7 in 85 for Championship teams), and he seems to have reached a tipping point where he's going backwards now. Which way will Emakhu go?

There's a huge swathe of centre-halves too who are often our best performers - Scales, Collins, Cashin, O'Shea, McGuinness, McLoughlin, Shaughnessy, Lawal, Dunne, O'Brien, Egan, Omobamidele. Really you could call up any 4/5 of those and the others wouldn't have too much to complain about. It's pretty wasteful on our part!

There's also a fair few players who seem to be going backwards (which I'm taking as being more permanent than just a bad batch of form, but still not terminal for all that) - Moran, O'Mahony, Bazunu, Omobamidele, Armstrong, Vata, Szmodics, Cannon, Taylor, Idah, Hodge, Connolly, Obafemi, Connell. (Travers?) You can argue about how harsh some of those calls are, and most of the players are quite young still, but I think 3/4 years ago we'd have hoped they'd be further along than they are now.

And that doesn't leave a lot of other players on the list to be honest. We had a brief golden era with Kenny's 21s team, but that's ultimately brought us less far than we might have expected, and I'm struggling to see the next batch coming through.

It really is looking very, very stark for the foreseeable future. Will we beat Armenia next month? If not, we're ending the group winless - first time since 1972.