5 players who are surprisingly part of Whoscored.com's top 20

#4 Florian Thauvin

French winger Florian Thauvin flopped at Newcastle but has since recovered

Currently sitting in the #9 spot in Whoscored.com’s top 20 – just above Sergio Aguero (#10) and Paolo Dybala (#11) is French winger Florian Thauvin, who currently plies his trade at Marseille. Whether his position is down to his undoubtedly good form – he’s scored 8 goals in 19 league games, has claimed 6 Man of the Match awards and has an average rating of 7.80 – or due to a fault in Whoscored.com’s system – weighting the French Ligue 1 as the same as the stronger Premier League and La Liga – is up in the air.

After all, Thauvin didn’t move any mountains during his brief spell at Newcastle United in 2015/16. The Frenchman was an odd signing to begin with, costing a pretty hefty £15m and signing a five-year deal. Prior to that he’d played two seasons at Marseille, where he hadn’t really lived up to his initial promise – he’d been named Ligue 1’s Young Player of the Year back in 2012/13, but by the time of the Newcastle move, he seemed distinctly average, albeit with a lot of potential.

The move to the north-east didn’t go well at all – Thauvin only played thirteen games before being loaned back to Marseille, where he’s been ever since – making the move permanent in the summer of 2017. And evidently it’s been a good move – he’s gone from being criticised for turning up to a game wearing a tuxedo, to being capped by France for the first time. Keep up his current form, and he could well find himself in their World Cup squad – and in Whoscored.com’s top 20 for a long time.