1. Gareth Bale – Tottenham Hotspur
It was hard to imagine the Welshman would end up having this sort of impact when Spurs paid Southampton £15 million for his services in 2007.
A series of poor performances and an unwanted record of not scoring a victory whenever he played and a loan move to lowly Birmingham City was mooted to give him some much needed experience.
Of course, he was an entirely different player back then and he has grown steadily into a world-class player over the past four years. So much so that he is now mentioned in the same breath as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Furthermore, he’s getting better with every season. His goalscoring has become such a regular occurrence that something seems wrong when he doesn’t find the net. He is currently on 18 in the league, adding up to 23 in all competitions.
He even managed to win two consecutive goal of the season awards in January and February for his strikes against Norwich and West Ham.
He picked up an injury in the Europa League quarterfinal defeat to Basel and the club’s league form suffered, highlighting just how important he is to Andre Villas-Boas plans.
He continues to earn plaudits for his style and at the rate he’s going it won’t belong before he tops Messi and Ronaldo on one of the plethora of player rating lists that emerge every year.