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.

[pineapple stu]

The lie of the land going into the international window...

Premier League
Everton 2-1 Palace - O'Brien 8.0 (a goalline clearance in there), Coleman 6.0 (a 99th-minute sub), Travers an unused sub
Villa 2-1 Burnley - Cullen 7.3
Brentford 0-1 Man City - Kelleher 6.6, Collins 6.3

Championship (which includes a set of midweek games)
Derby 1-1 Charlton - Coventry 6.6
Birmingham 2-2 Wednesday - Cashin 6.2 (a first start - but at fault for one of Wednesday's goals), Otegbayo 5.9 (a 95th-minute sub)
Blackburn 1-2 Swansea - McLoughlin 6.7, Idah 6.8 (last 30 only, but an assist)
Bristol City 1-1 Ipswich - Armstrong 5.9 (last 25 only), Sykes 6.5 (last 35 only), O'Shea 6.6, McAteer 6.4, Szmodics 6.1 (last 10 only), Taylor an unused sub
Hull 2-2 Preston - Egan 6.9
Leicester 1-1 Wrexham - McClean 6.3 (last 20 only)
Boro 0-0 Stoke - Browne 7.0, Lawal 7.1, Bonham an unused sub
Sheffield United 1-2 Southampton - McGuinness 6.3, Ogbene 6.3, Cannon 6.1 (last 20 only), Manning 6.8, Azaz 6.4, Bazunu an unused sub
QPR 0-0 Oxford - Dunne 7.0
Millwall 0-4 Coventry - Emakhu 6.3, Smallbone 6.1 (last 15 only)
Norwich 0-1 WBA - Molumby 6.8, Johnston 6.9
Portsmouth 2-2 Watford - Abankwah 6.9, Vata 7.5 (came on as a sub after half an hour, but scored and was man of the match)
Wrexham 1-1 Birmingham - McClean 6.1 (last 5 only), Cashin an unused sub (so dropped after his error midweek it seems)
Portsmouth 1-0 Boro - Browne 6.2 (last 20 only)
Millwall 3-0 WBA - Smallbone 6.7, Emakhu 6.1 (last 5 only), Johnston 6.6, Molumby 6.2
Hull 1-0 Sheffield United - Egan 6.8, McGuinness 6.3, Ogbene 6.1, Cannon 6.0 (last 20 only)
Blackburn 1-1 Stoke - McLoughlin 8.3 (0.01 off man of the match), Bonham an unused sub.
Sheffield Wednesday 0-5 Coventry - Otegbayo an unused sub
Ipswich 3-1 Norwich - O'Shea 6.6, Szmodics 6.8, McAteer and Taylor unused subs
Preston 2-0 Charlton - Coventry 6.4
Bristol City 1-2 QPR - Sykes 6.4, Armstrong 5.9 (last 25 only), Dunne 7.7 (and an assist)
Derby 1-1 Southampton - Manning 7.2, Azaz 6.1 (last 10 only), Bazunu an unused sub (and McCarthy man of the match)
Swansea 1-3 Leicester - Idah 6.4 (last 25 only - scored a penalty, one of only five touches he had while on the pitch)
Watford 2-1 Oxford - Abankwah 7.8

SPL
Celtic 3-2 Motherwell - Scales 6.4
Dundee United 1-1 Livi - Carey and Blaney unused subs
Killie 2-0 St Mirren - Brown 7.9 (and an assist), Phillips 6.0, Idowu 5.8 (hooked at half-time)
Hearts 1-0 Hibs - McEntee 7.5, O'Hora 6.3, McGrath 6.0 (last 15 only)
Aberdeen 4-0 Dundee - O'Hara an unused sub

Other
Fiorentina 1-2 Roma - Ferguson an unused sub
Strasbourg 5-0 Angers - Omobamidele 6.2 (last 15 only)
PEC Zwolle 0-4 PSV - MacNulty 5.8
Alkmaar 2-1 Telstar - Parrott 6.2 (last 20 only)
Goztepe 1-0 Basaksehir - Ebosele 6.5 (last 15 only)

Champions League
Union St Gilloise 0-4 Newcastle - Murphy an unused sub

Europa League
Roma 0-1 Lille - Ferguson 5.6
Celtic 0-1 Braga - Scales 6.1
Genk 0-1 Ferencvaros - O'Dowda 6.8


So very good weeks (8.3+) for McLoughlin
Good weeks (7.3-8.2) for O'Brien, Cullen, Vata, Dunne, Abankwah, Brown, McEntee
Poor weeks (5.3-6.2) for Cashin, Molumby, Ogbene, Phillips, Idowu, Ferguson, Scales, MacNulty
And very poor weeks (<5.3) for no-one

[Trequartista20]

Vata started against Oxford Utd and played 70 minutes. Got a rating of 7.0 on Sofascore for what it's worth.

Ndaba came on as a late substitute for Lecce in their away win over Parma that took them off the bottom and up into 14th.

Moran made his first start for LAFC in midweek (he came on in the 65th minute tonight). Ronan also started for Colorado.

[pineapple stu]

Don't know how I missed Vata - but Ndaba is a good spot. 7.2 and 6.2 on whoscored respectively.

I haven't included MLS players in this although the ratings are there - it's not really on the radar for our players.

I could include Obafemi too (in the Bundesliga 2), though he's not been involved since one 15-minute sub appearance last month, when he got a 6.2

[pineapple stu]

I see Will Ferry not on the list above - marked as English on whoscored. 8.7 his rating against Livi, with an assist. Seems to be in very good form this season - average rating 7.5. But it's at a mid-table SPL team, so I won't be getting too excited yet