Marcus Rashford, Renato Sanches, Kingsley Coman and Marco Asensio amongst nominees for Golden Boy

Marcus Rashford has become fan favourite with the United supporters

The nominees for the prestigious Golden Boy award has been announced with 40 players under the age of 21 vying for the award who play in Europe. Italian newspaper Tuttosport have announced the names which include Manchester United's teenage sensation, Marcus Rashford who has arrived at the scene after impressive performances since the second part of the last season.

After scoring a sensational double against Manchester City in the Champions League, Celtic's new signing, Moussa Dembele is also included in the coveted list. Chelsea have a strong contingent in these awards with the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Nathan and Andreas Christensen being nominated. Man City duo of Leroy Sane and Kelechi Iheanacho are also nominated along with Arsenal's latest sensation, Alex Iwobi.

Liverpool have a sole nominee in new signing Marko Grujic while champions Leicester City's Demarai Gray is also nominated. After a stellar showing last season for Spurs, Dele Alli is also nominated as the nominees for the Golden Boy award are Premier League dominated. The past two winners of this award are also from the Premier League with Anthony Martial winning it in 2015 following Raheem Sterling who won it with Liverpool in 2014.

Premier League will have some tough competition from Bayern Munich's duo of Kingsley Coman and Renato Sanches with the Portuguese being the bookmaker’s favourite for this year’s prize. Real Madrid's Marco Asensio is also nominated.

Golden Boy awards, started in 2003 and have some illustrious previous winners including the likes of Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Cesc Fabregas and Paul Pogba. Rafael Van der Vaart was the inaugural winner of this prestigious award who was then followed by Wayne Rooney. Along with some legends of the game who have won this award, there are some dubious names who have not been able to make as big a impact as them like  Anderson and Mario Balotelli who have won the Golden Boy award.

Here is the full list of the 40 man shortlist announced for the 2016 Golden Boy awards :

Dele Alli (Tottenham)
Marco Asensio (Real Madrid)
Leon Bailey (Racing Genk)
Riechedly Bazoer (Ajax)
Gabriel Boschilia (Monaco) 
Julian Brandt (Bayer Leverkusen) Andreas Christensen (Borussia Monchengladbach, on loan from Chelsea)
Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich, on loan from Juventus)
Ante Coric (Dinamo Zagreb) Amadou Diawara (Napoli) Mahmoud Dahoud (Gladbach) Danilo (Benfica)
Moussa Dembele (Celtic)
Ousmane Dembele (Borussia Dortmund) 
Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan) Breel Ambolo (Schalke) 
Carlos Fernandez (Sevilla)
Gabigol (Inter) 
Aleksandr Golovin (CSKA Moscow) Demarai Gray (Leicester City) Marko Gruijic (Liverpool)
Goncalo Guedes (Benfica)
Alen Halilovic (Hamburg) 
Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City)
Alex Iwobi (Arsenal)
Viktor Kovalenko (Shakhtar Donetsk)
Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) Lucas Hernandez (Atletico Madrid) Emanuel Mammana (Lyon)
Nathan (Vitesse, on loan from Chelsea)
Ruben Neves (Porto)
Jules Ntcham (Genoa)
Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
Renato Sanches (Bayern Munich) Jairo Riedewald (Ajax) 
Antonio Sarabria (Real Betis)
Leroy Sane (Manchester City) Jonathan Tah (Leverkusen)
Youri Tielemans (Anderlecht) Almamy Toure (Monaco)