In December 2019 we profiled an 18-year-old winger on loan at ADO Den Haag and told our readers he was a world class player in the making. Remember the name, we said. This revisit is the fun kind, because Crysencio Summerville is now a Premier League footballer, even if the route he took made our specific prediction look silly. Here is what we saw then, and what our platform data says happened next.
The player we profiled in 2019
ADO Den Haag were never a factory for young prospects the way Ajax or Southampton were, which is exactly why Summerville stood out there. Born in Rotterdam on 30 October 2001, he was a right winger, right-footed, freshly 18, on a season-long loan from Feyenoord with a contract running out the following June.
His path to that point already said a lot. He started at Noorderkwartier before Feyenoord took him into their youth setup, and in the second half of 18/19 they loaned him to FC Dordrecht, where he scored five goals in eighteen appearances in the Dutch second division as a 16 and 17-year-old. He had come through several national youth teams and won the European Championship with the Netherlands under-17s in 2018. When ADO signed him on loan, their manager of soccer affairs called him a more than interesting talent. We thought that was underselling it.
What we saw then
Pace, first and always. Summerville was rapid, agile, small in frame but brave in the duel, with a wonderful first touch and quick feet that made him miserable to defend against. He was always in motion, always demanding the ball, and for a teenager his decision-making in the final third was unusually clean. He had the balance and engine to sustain it for the full 90 minutes, and his dribbling made him the kind of hard-to-defend attacker that opposition full-backs genuinely fear. We had been following him since the Dordrecht loan and were already convinced that, despite his age, he could give real value to a senior team.
Strengths
- Genuine pace and dribbling that scared opposition full-backs
- A wonderful first touch, aggression and playmaking instinct in one package
- Determination in duels despite his size, always in motion
Weaknesses
We were honest that he offered little defensively, though we argued it is unfair to demand man-marking, tackling and heading from a winger the way you would from defenders or central midfielders. The fairer criticism was leadership: he was not yet a player who lifted teammates when things went wrong. At 18, with proper training and minutes, we expected both to come.
His 19/20 season, as we watched it
He joined ADO on matchday five and immediately became one of the few bright spots in a struggling side, starting 11 of his 13 possible matches in his first Eredivisie season. That was the Feyenoord model working as intended: the club has always prided itself on developing talent and giving its younger generation playing time, and when the first team could not offer a teenager exposure, a loan platform like ADO would. He made his Netherlands U19 debut in the same stretch, having made his Eredivisie debut at just 17. Impressive performances, one after the other, in a team going backwards. Those are the loans that tell you something real.
The road that got him there
For a player who had only just turned 18, the mileage was remarkable, and it was a big part of why we rated him so highly:
- 17/18: Feyenoord youth team to Feyenoord U17
- 18/19: Feyenoord U17 to Feyenoord U19
- 18/19: loaned from Feyenoord U19 to FC Dordrecht
- 19/20: loaned from Feyenoord U19 to ADO Den Haag
A full season of senior second-division football at 16 and 17, caps for the Netherlands at U16, U17, U18 and U19 level, and an Eredivisie loan before his 19th birthday. Changing clubs, chasing minutes, developing at a pace that was frankly hard to keep track of. He might not have been tall, but he was skilful, technical and hungry, and things looked very good indeed.
What we predicted
Now for the accounting. Transfermarkt valued him at 0.35 million euros in December 2019. We forecast 1 million at the next update and 1.5 million if he reached 20 appearances, with wildly optimistic scenario numbers stacked above that. For his next club we ran through Anderlecht, Pescara, Bologna, Club Brugge and staying at Feyenoord, before landing on AZ Alkmaar as our confident pick for 20/21.
He did not go to AZ. He did not stay at Feyenoord either. Per our own database, the next chapter was Leeds United, a move we never saw coming, and honestly the ambition of it fits everything we wrote about his hunger. Wrong club, right trajectory. We will take half marks and a lesson: when a player is developing that fast, do not assume the next step will be a sensible Dutch one.
Where is he now
Our platform has Summerville at West Ham in the Premier League. The season-by-season record in our database shows the whole arc since our article.
| Season | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021/22 | Leeds | 6 | 0 |
| 2022/23 | Leeds | 28 | 4 |
| 2023/24 | Leeds | 46 | 20 |
| 2024/25 | West Ham | 19 | 1 |
| 2025/26 | West Ham | 31 | 5 |
Look at that 2023/24 line for a second. Forty-six Championship appearances, 20 goals and nine assists from a winger we scouted as a 17-year-old at Dordrecht. That is the season that turned him from prospect into commodity, and it earned him the West Ham move. His first Premier League season with the Hammers was a slow burn, 19 appearances and a single goal, but 2025/26 brought 31 appearances and five goals, the profile of an established top-flight winger at 24. Steve keeps reminding me that his own career ended before a season like that was ever possible, which is probably why neither of us takes a five-year climb from ADO's relegation fight to the Premier League for granted. His live numbers are on his Field Insider scout report.
Our verdict, then and now
We wrote in 2019 that we had a soft spot for Summerville, that he breathed bags of potential, and that we rated him as a future world class player. We also admitted at the time that it might be premature to judge a lad who had just turned 18, and asked readers to let that sink in. World class is still a step above where he sits today, so we will not claim a perfect call. But the core read, an undersized winger whose pace, touch and hunger would carry him well beyond the Eredivisie, has been vindicated season by season in our own data. The AZ prediction was wrong. The player was right. Of the hundreds of teenagers we profiled in those early years, he remains one of the calls we are proudest of, precisely because we made it before anyone was obliged to agree with us. Remember the name, we said. Premier League defenders have to now.