The potential ability of every Man City youngster

Martin Macdonald

4 Mar 2022 07:18 CST
3 min read

Romeo Lavia, Manchester City — © ProShots

Romeo Lavia is the current Manchester City player under the age of 21 with the most potential, according to SciSports.

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FootballTransfers' transfer valuations and player potential metrics are calculated in collaboration with SciSports, a world-leading football analytics agency that assesses over 60,000 professional footballers worldwide.

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A youth product of Anderlecht, Lavia was spotted as a 15-year old by Pep Guardiola in a tournament organised by Man City star Kevin De Bruyne.

Lavia was included in the 2021/22 Champions League squad for City and eventually made his first senior appearance for the club in a League Cup fixture against Wycome. A defensive midfielder, he has been likened to Fernandinho.

According to SciSports, he has a current skill level of 63.2 and a potential skill level of 121.2.

Lavia actually has a better potential that two players from the first-team squad in Brazilian wonderkid Kayky and Cole Palmer, who has potential skill levels of 87.9 and 114.2 respectively.

Player	SciSports Skill Level	Potential Skill Level
Cole Palmer	74.7	114.2
Kayky	47.4	87.9
Romeo Lavia	63.2	121.2
Liam Delap	78.1	118.3
James McAtee	69.8	115.1
Shea Charles	53.5	111.1
CJ Egan-Riley	55.7	109.1
Mikki van Sas	47.0	106.7
Oscar Bobb	56.7	106.2
Samuel Edozie	60.0	104.0
Luke Mbete	49.6	103.9
Tai Sodje	45.7	100.8
Micah Hamilton	44.2	99.8
Kwaku Oduroh	47.0	96.3
Cieran Slicker	49.3	94.8
Alex Robertson	48.6	94.2
Rowan McDonald	48.1	93.1
Josh Wilson-Esbrand	41.4	89.2
Jayden Braaf	47.7	85.5
Jadel Katongo	42.0	104.0
Carlos Borges	49.8	100.6
Joshua McNamara	40.1	95.9
Liam Smith	25.8	71.5

In the table above, the three highlighted names are the players with the most potential from the senior squad, the Under-23s squad, and the Under-18s squad respectively.

Potential of Man City Under 23 players

Secondary to the aforementioned Lavia is a name who is already well-known to Man City fans in Liam Delap.

Delap, the son of former Sunderland and Stoke defender Rory Delap, has been making a name for himself at the Man City academy and has been earmarked as a future Premier League star.

In his debut season for the U18s he scored 15 goals, including two in the U-18 Premier League Cup Final.

In September of 2020, Delap made his first team debut against Bournemouth in the League Cup, and marked the occasion with his first senior goal.

Delap would make his Premier League debut three days later off the bench as Man City lost 5-2 at home to Leicester.

In third from the Under-23s is James McAtee. A midfielder, he has already featured for the first team in the League Cup and the Premier League.

Interestingly, one player from the Under-18s squad has more SciSports potential than some in the Under-23s squad and that is Jadel Katongo. The 17-year-old has a Potential Skill rating of 104.0.