Super Eagles and Leicester City midfielder Wilfred Ndidi has been ranked as the 13th best player in the world for the first quarter of 2021 by the highly respected CIES Football Observatory.

Ndidi has an index of 85.5 having played 852 minutes in the first quarter of 2021. The top star in the world according to CIES is Lionel Messi of Barcelona, whose index is 92.5 after he clocked 998 minutes of action.

This crowns him as the third-best player in the Premier League ahead of the likes of Harry Kane, Luke Shaw and Thiago Alcantara.

Some of the other top-ranked stars are Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich, 89.5 index/1106 minutes), Jorginho (Chelsea, 89.5/799 minutes), Ruben Diaz (Manchester City, 89.4/1335 minutes and Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus, 89.3/1191 minutes).