Lewis Baker

Baker spent eight years on Chelsea's books without a single senior league appearance for them. The club named him their Young Player of the Year for 2013–14 and gave him their Goal of the Season award the same year; he won the FA Youth Cup and the UEFA Youth League with their junior sides. The senior side sent him out on loan, again and again.

The Netherlands is where it worked. Across two seasons at Vitesse he made 64 appearances and scored 15 goals, won the KNVB Cup in 2017, took the club's Goal of the Season award and set a Vitesse record in 2015–16 by creating nine chances in a single match against NEC. Before that he had helped Milton Keynes Dons to promotion from League One as runners-up, with three goals in twelve games.

Middlesbrough, Leeds United — where Chelsea recalled him in November 2018 — Reading, then Fortuna Düsseldorf, cancelled in January 2020. At Trabzonspor he played a full season and won the Turkish Super Cup.

He joined Stoke City on a free transfer in January 2022. Twenty-seven goals in 121 appearances, and the captain's armband through 2022–23. A loan to Blackburn Rovers in 2024–25 brought 13 games and one goal.

With England he went as far as the U21s, 17 caps and eight goals, and took the Golden Boot at the 2016 Toulon Tournament. Nine goals in fourteen U19 appearances remain his heaviest return in an England shirt. The senior call never came.