The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

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The Peterborough chairman, Darragh MacAnthony, is rarely backwards in coming forward and was
frank as ever when asked about the potential of his club’s young midfielder. “All the way to a top-four
club and then further to [a] European top club honestly,” MacAnthony said and, while it is early to
make bold predictions about a player who turned 18 on 30 November, it is not hard to understand his
thinking. Lopes, who was born in Lisbon but joined Peterborough’s academy at 14 after playing junior
football in the area, looks a remarkable talent and this season has looked an old head on young
shoulders for Grant McCann’s vibrant young League One side. Tottenham are among those linked and
they would be getting someone who could one day be the complete package: Lopes is exceptional at
winning the ball, tackling with a cleanness that reminds one of the art’s validity, and carries it upfield
slickly, posing a threat further forward too. His sole goal this season, a fierce drive in an EFL Cup tie
against Swansea after he had broken up an opposition attack, proved the point – and it will not be his
last such contribution. NA
Lewis Baker (Chelsea, on loan at Vitesse, 21)
Chelsea fans might be forgiven for finding it difficult to remember who of their loan contingent is
doing exactly what but the following prompt could help: Baker is the one producing dominant,
decisive performances in Vitesse Arnhem’s midfield on a near-weekly basis and the one who, after a
relatively slow start to his professional career, looks as if he may spare a certain former manager
some opprobrium. “If Baker, [Izzy] Brown and [Dominic] Solanke are not national team players in a
few years, I should blame myself,” José Mourinho said in 2014. Baker, the oldest of the three, has
scored some spectacular goals in his second season with the Dutch club and believes he can go the
same way as Nathaniel Chalobah, who had seemed in danger of becoming a serial loanee with no
clear career path but has played a part in Chelsea’s first-team under Antonio Conte this season.
Whether or not things go that well, a future somewhere in the Premier League seems certain. NA
Moise Kean (Juventus), 16
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Often, when a club have a prodigy in their ranks, they like to be cautious, to keep him back so as to
not rush him. Sometimes, though, they are confident enough in that youngster’s abilities to throw him
in at the deep end, which leads on to the Juventus forward Moise Kean. “For me it is normal to play
with older players,” the 16-year-old Italian told Gazzetta dello Sport, as if he was shrugging off the
idea of appearing alongside Gonzalo Higuaín, Paulo Dybala et al in the manner of a kid wandering
down to the local shop. Born in February 2000, Kean became the first player born in this century to
appear in Serie A and the Champions League, when he came off the bench against Pescara and Sevilla