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Five young Premier League players to watch in 2015/2016; Part 2

By on August 8, 2015

Copa America, the Women’s World Cup and the Gold Cup have all kept football fanatics busy over the summer and in less than twenty-four hours, the Premier League will renew again with the start of the 2015/2016 campaign. Ahead of the upcoming season, Football Every Day’s Alex Morgan takes a look at five young stars to watch out for in the coming season. In part one, Alex featured Dele Alli, Gedion Zelalem and Rolando Aarons. In part two, he takes a look at Aleksandar Mitrovic, Patrick Bamford, and some honorable mentions.

Aleksandar Mitrovic (Newcastle United No45, Serbia)

Aleksandar Mitrovic is only twenty but scored thirty-six goals in sixty-nine appearances for the Belgian side Anderlecht over the past two seasons. The forward has physical gifts far beyond his years and being strong, good in the air and at holding up the ball, is perfectly suited to Premier League football after a £12 million move to Newcastle; yet at times, between the head-butts, clashes and controversies Mitrovic’s erratic temperament serves as a reminder that he has a long way to go to fulfill his potential.

The Serbian saw red twice and picked up thirteen yellow cards last season and his history is even more colorful. Mitrovic broke into the starting lineup of the Serbian club Teleoptik at the age of sixteen and in the summer of 2012, earned a move to league champions FK Partizan. Over the course of the season Mitrovic scored thirteen goals in twenty-eight league appearances but controversy hung onto his coattails, with the forward often celebrating goals in an inappropriate manner.

Upon a €5m move to Belgium, Mitrovic continued to shine but oddly, also began to gain weight — blaming it on his mother’s cooking. Once he put that episode behind him, the goals came flooding in. Mitrovic also head butted Club Brugge’s Bjorn Engels in May 2014, while clashing with Nefchi Baku’s goalkeeping in a Europa League fixture in the previous year, but such his talent earned a move to Newcastle.

There’s no doubt that Mitrovic has the potential to light up the Premier League but we’ll have to wait and see if it’s for the right or wrong reasons.

Patrick Bamford (Crystal Palace No8 (on loan from Chelsea), England)

After a breakthrough year in the Championship with seventeen league goals in thirty-eight league appearances last season, winning the Championship’s Young Player of the Year award last season, twenty-one-year-old Patrick Bamford now has made the step up to the Premier League.

Bamford rose through the youth setup of Nottingham Forest before earning a move to Chelsea, where he signed a five-year contract. Through the years Bamford has progressed through the Football League with a series of loan moves, first impressing at MK Dons before moving onto Derby County in January 2014. Bamford seamlessly transitioned into life in the Championship, scoring eight goals in twenty-one appearances.

In his latest loan move, Bamford scored seventeen goals in thirty-nine appearances for Middlesbrough last season. Notably, he won a stoppage time penalty in Middlesbrough’s 14-13 penalty shootout loss to Liverpool in the third round of the League Cup. He harvested seventeen goals and five assists and his performances won him a new three-year-contract at Chelsea, before being loaned out to Crystal Palace for this coming season.

Although Bamford lacks ariel prowess, the lanky forward will challenge Marouane Chamakh and the expected arrival of Connor Wickham for the starting position up front in Alan Pardew’s favored 4-2-3-1. Moreover, Chelsea would likely have been given a signal by Pardew that Bamford will see playing time given the forward had a host of other loan suitors. If need be, the youngster can also tuck back into the midfield and play on the wings. Bamford has also appeared through various levels of England’s youth system and if he can impress this coming season, could be tipped to fight for a spot in Chelsea and England’s senior squad in coming years.

Honorable mentions:

Duncan Watmore (Sunderland No41, England)

Son of Ian Watmore, executive director at the English FA, Duncan Watmore is a pacy winger who signed for Sunderland after rising through the ranks at Altrincham.  Watmore will be hoping to see some playing time this season after a loan spell with Hibernian in 2014.

Jason Denayer (Manchester City No28, Belgium)

A strong, sturdy center-back, Jason Denayer excelled in a season-long loan with Celtic last season and has already won three caps for Belgium.  This coming season, the twenty-year-old will hope to break into Manchester City’s first team ahead of Vincent Kompany or Eliaquim Mangala, a pair that struggled to find form last season.

Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City No72, Nigeria)

Before officially signing for Manchester City last summer, Kelechi Iheanacho starred in the club’s preseason tour of the US and this summer, featured in City’s International Champions Cup campaign in Australia.  A stocky forward in the mold of Wilfried Bony, Iheanacho will hope to see some playing time off the bench this season and provide defenses, as well as football commentators everywhere, with a headache.

Andrew Robertson (Hull City No26, Scotland)

At the age of twenty-one, Andrew Robertson already established himself as a started for Hull City last season.  A Scottish full-back, Robertson will hope to impress again this season to secure a starting sport with Scotland and potentially a move to a big-money club.

Homepage photo credit: Ultraslansi, via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.