Premier League Player Of The Season 2025-26: Arsenal-led Nomination Breakdown

The Premier League has revealed the eight contenders for the 2025-26 Player of the Season award, with Arsenal heavily represented among the nominees. The winner will be confirmed on 23 May, bringing to an end a campaign in which Bruno Fernandes leads the field, three Arsenal players are included, and Erling Haaland is the only former winner on the shortlist.

Recent history offers an extra talking point. Each of the last five winners played for that season’s eventual champions, including Mohamed Salah in 2024-25 after Liverpool took the title. Salah does not feature among this year’s options, while new contenders such as Igor Thiago, Antoine Semenyo and Morgan Gibbs-White have forced their way into the conversation.

The 2025-26 shortlist reflects a mix of consistent stars and breakthrough names across the division. Arsenal provide David Raya, Declan Rice and Gabriel Magalhaes, giving the north London club more candidates than any other side. Manchester United, Manchester City, Brentford and Nottingham Forest each contribute one nominee, with Fernandes widely viewed as the leading individual based on creativity and influence.

Erling Haaland stands out as the only previous Player of the Season winner in this year’s pool. The Manchester City forward is chasing a third Golden Boot, having already become one of the league’s dominant scorers. No Manchester United player has earned this individual honour since Nemanja Vidic in 2010-11, although six different United players have claimed it across eight seasons.

Fernandes is back among the Player of the Season nominees for the first time since 2020-21, after one of the most productive campaigns of his Manchester United career. The playmaker has supplied 19 league assists in 2025-26, more than any other player in the competition, and sits one behind the record mark of 20 held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne.

Set-pieces have been a crucial weapon for Fernandes. Ten of his 11 assists have arrived from dead-ball deliveries, leaving Fernandes only one short of Steven Gerrard’s seasonal record for set-piece assists set in 2013-14. Fernandes has created 124 chances overall, the highest total in a single Premier League season since De Bruyne’s 136 in 2019-20.

Premier League Player of the Season 2025-26 Arsenal defensive nominees

Arsenal’s defensive strength is central to the cases for both Gabriel Magalhaes and David Raya. Across 36 league matches in 2025-26, Arsenal have conceded only 26 goals, putting them on course to join a small group of 31 teams, from 686 in Premier League history, who have allowed fewer than 30 goals across an entire campaign.

Gabriel has been on the pitch for just 19 of those goals conceded, underlining the defender’s impact. Among 57 defenders to contest at least 200 duels this season, only four boast a better success rate than Gabriel’s 65.9%. Brazil has only produced one previous Player of the Season, with Juninho recognised in 1996-97, so Gabriel is attempting to join a short list.

Behind that back line, Raya has already secured the Golden Glove for a third straight campaign, having shared the award with Matz Sels in 2024-25. Raya has kept 18 clean sheets with two fixtures left, against Burnley and Crystal Palace, and can reach 20 shutouts, a mark last hit in 2021-22 by both Alisson and Ederson.

Raya is also the only Arsenal player to have started and completed every league game this season, not missing a minute in 2025-26. That durability supports Raya’s bid to become only the second goalkeeper to earn Player of the Season recognition, and the first since Peter Schmeichel collected the honour in 1995-96.

Premier League Player of the Season 2025-26 midfield influence of Declan Rice

Rice closes his third Arsenal season with another Player of the Season nomination, having now made the shortlist in all three campaigns at the club. No outfield team-mate has logged more league minutes, with Rice playing 3,009 and sitting out only one of Arsenal’s 36 Premier League fixtures so far in 2025-26.

Rice has also become Arsenal’s primary creative outlet, leading the squad with 63 chances created and a team-high expected assists figure of 6.9. Much of that danger stems from his set-piece work. Rice’s xA from corners and indirect free-kicks stands at 3.2, higher than any other player’s total from similar situations this season.

Out of possession, Rice remains heavily involved. The midfielder averages 5.2 possession regains per 90 minutes, the best rate in the Arsenal squad. Rice also averages 80 touches per 90 in league play during 2025-26, marking this campaign as the busiest of Rice’s top-flight career in terms of involvement on the ball.

Premier League Player of the Season 2025-26 striking cases of Haaland and Igor Thiago

Haaland is nominated for Player of the Season for the third time in four years at Manchester City, having only missed out in 2024-25. The Norwegian forward leads the current Golden Boot race with 26 goals, four more than second-placed Igor Thiago, and is targeting a third scoring crown in English football.

Only Thierry Henry, Salah, Alan Shearer and Harry Kane have collected at least three Premier League Golden Boots to date. Haaland has also matched his personal best of eight league assists, first set in 2022-23, and has now created as many goals in 2025-26 as in the previous two league campaigns combined, when he registered five and three respectively.

Thiago’s inclusion completes a striking battle at the top of the scoring charts. After an injury-hampered first season at Brentford, Thiago has responded with 22 Premier League goals in 2025-26. That figure is a club record for a Brentford player in a Premier League season and is also the highest single-season total by any Brazilian in the competition.

Thiago’s form earned an international debut for Brazil in March. In the league, Thiago has scored 42.3% of Brentford’s goals, while his 25 goals in all competitions account for 38.5% of the team’s total. Eight of Thiago’s league strikes have come from penalties, converting eight of nine attempts, with only eight players ever attempting more penalties in a single Premier League campaign.

Premier League Player of the Season 2025-26 creative impact of Morgan Gibbs-White and Antoine Semenyo

Gibbs-White has delivered the best Premier League scoring season of his career while helping Nottingham Forest avoid relegation. The attacking midfielder has recorded 13 goals in 35 appearances, improving significantly on last season’s tally of seven, which came during Forest’s push to a top-seven finish and European qualification.

Across the 2025-26 campaign, only five players have more non-penalty goal involvements than Gibbs-White’s 16. In open play, just eight players have set up more chances than his 43. That combination of finishing and creativity has been central to Forest’s efforts to remain in the division after a challenging season.

Semenyo’s year has been split across two clubs yet still strong enough for Player of the Season consideration. Starting at Bournemouth, Semenyo contributed 10 goals and three assists in 20 league appearances before a mid-season transfer to Manchester City, where Semenyo scored in five of the first eight Premier League games under Pep Guardiola.

History offers an interesting parallel for Semenyo’s dual-club campaign. Only one previous Player of the Season winner represented two teams in the same successful year. Dwight Yorke played a single league match for Aston Villa in 1998-99 before his move to Manchester United, where Yorke featured in a famous treble-winning season.

With the award set to be announced on 23 May, the shortlist presents a broad mix of attacking stars, creative midfielders and defensive leaders. Whether the eventual winner comes from likely champion contenders or from a club further down the table, each nominee has produced a 2025-26 campaign strong enough to justify a place in this season’s final eight.