Bruno Fernandes Wins PL Player of the Season 2025-26

Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has won the 2025-26 EA Sports Premier League Player of the Season award, becoming only the second player from a non-title-winning club to take the honour in the past six years — and the first Manchester United player to do so since 2010-11.

A Chance-Creation Margin That Set Him Apart

The statistical case for Fernandes was built on a gap that had few precedents in a single Premier League season. The Portuguese midfielder registered 20 assists and 8 goals across the campaign, while creating a league-high 132 chances — a figure that dwarfed the next-highest total of 89, recorded by Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai. That margin of more than 40 chances separated him not just from the shortlist but from every other player in the division.

His 20 assists tie the single-season Premier League record, currently shared with Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. United's final league fixture — away at Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday — gives Fernandes the chance to break the record outright.

Winning in a Year Arsenal Won the League

The shortlist he defeated included three members of Arsenal's title-winning squad: centre-back Gabriel, goalkeeper David Raya, and midfielder Declan Rice, alongside Manchester City's Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo, Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White, and Brentford's Igor Thiago.

Fernandes is only the second player in recent years to win the award without his club lifting the title. The last was De Bruyne in 2019-20, when Liverpool won the league. That context makes the award notable: voters judged individual output over collective success, in a year when the title-winning squad supplied three of the finalists.

At United, the win continues a run of personal honours that has accompanied the club's improved form. He collected his fifth Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award from the club and was named the Football Writers' Association Men's Footballer of the Year earlier this month. United finished the league season in third place, securing Champions League qualification, under interim manager Michael Carrick — appointed permanently after the January sacking of Ruben Amorim.

The Record and What Comes Next

Former United captain Roy Keane, speaking on The Overlap, questioned the focus on Fernandes's individual milestone, arguing that a captain should be measured by whether his team wins rather than personal statistics. Fernandes has not publicly responded to that criticism.

After the Brighton fixture, Fernandes will join Portugal's squad for the 2026 World Cup, where they open against Congo on June 17 before facing Uzbekistan and Colombia in the group stage.