We put it to you that there is no Premier League player right now who can raise the energy of a home crowd like Estevao.

He’s a throwback; could even be considered something of a maverick if it weren’t for his work off the ball, what we assume are some hard yards in training and a refusal to?treat his body with contempt.

Bums lift from seats when he gets on the ball. He’s electric; capable of making something happen from nothing and therefore able to turn games at the drop of a shoulder, through a nutmeg, a tight turn or a moment of twinkle-toed genius to diddle a defender.

“People love that kind of player,” Enzo Maresca said, hailing the 18-year-old’s ability to lift the crowd as well as his impact on the team after he came off the bench against Wolves on Saturday to immediately create the second goal.

READ MORE: Enzo Maresca not getting the Chelsea credit he deserves from you, us or anyone else

There are few sounds better than that hum of expectation when a talented footballer gets on the ball, and it’s hugely powerful, in lifting Estevao, Chelsea as a whole, and putting the willies up opposition defenders who are well aware that the crowd is waiting for them to be turned inside out by the boy with the ball at his feet.

Widely regarded as one of the best England wingers of all time, quite possibly the very best, John Barnes’ opinion might very well be one we would seek out on Estevao, who’s now the second-most valuable teenager in the world at ￡104m, behind Lamine Yamal (￡308m), according to CIES Football Observatory.

Colour us surprised therefore to hear Barnes not only refuse to board the Estevao train but put him in the same bracket as Jadon Sancho at Stamford Bridge.

“Estevao is a young player who has come into the team and is doing well at the moment,” he told?Video Gamer.

“However, I remember Jadon Sancho doing the same thing and based off that I tend to leave opinions on young players alone and wait for them to grow. We can’t start putting pressure on him yet.

“In reality, he’s had 10 good games… he’s done nothing! He’s got lots of potential, but we’ve seen that at Chelsea before and there’s lots of examples where it hasn’t worked out.

“He’s not going to be a starter every week because they have so many players and all of a sudden, if he has a few below-par performances, we could be writing him off after another 10 games.

“He has good potential, lots of ability and he can be a very good player, but at this moment in time he has done nothing and achieved nothing.”

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It’s hard not to feel sad at Barnes point-blank refusing to be swept up in the furore surrounding such an absurdly talented footballer – it’s OK to feel joy, John – and also to not be concerned by the state of mind of a man who can look at the respective performances of Estevao and Sancho for Chelsea and think them in any way comparable as footballers.

Sancho wasn’t bad for Chelsea last season. But his notable moments, like his brilliant goal in that madcap 4-3 win at Tottenham, were met with begrudging acceptance that ‘he can?occasionally?still make a difference’ from those watching a footballer whose far more obvious contribution at Chelsea was to endlessly receive the ball on the flank, take several touches to slow the game down and then pass it backwards.

The groans that would often greet Sancho’s safety-first approach could not be more different to the reaction when Estevao gets the ball. “The fans can be happy,” Maresca said, and here’s hoping John Barnes can be too some day.