Bruno Fernandes named 2025-26 Premier League player of the season

Bruno Fernandes has been named the Premier League Player of the Season for 2025-26, completing a remarkable double after his Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award earlier this month and few who have watched English football this season would argue with either verdict. The Manchester United captain has produced the finest individual campaign of his career, redefining what it means to carry a football club on one’s shoulders and doing so with the kind of relentless excellence that has left his peers trailing in his wake.

Fernandes has scored eight goals and provided 20 assists across 37 Premier League appearances, directly contributing to 28 goals as United finished third in the table and secured a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League. Those are extraordinary numbers in any era of the Premier League, but placed in their proper context a club that dismissed its manager in January, endured a turbulent winter, and required a dramatic resurgence simply to return to Europe’s elite competition they become something close to extraordinary.

His 20 assists equal the record for most in a single Premier League campaign, placing him alongside Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne in the history books. That he achieved such a milestone while simultaneously shouldering the captaincy of a club in upheaval speaks volumes about the mental and physical fortitude of a player who, at 31, appears to be reaching the absolute peak of his powers. With one match still remaining against Brighton, Fernandes still has the opportunity to surpass that milestone and stand alone at the top of the all-time single-season assist chart.

He created 132 chances across the season, the most in the league and 43 more than second-placed Dominik Szoboszlai of Liverpool. That margin is not a narrow victory in a statistical contest it is a gulf of class. It suggests a player operating on an entirely different creative frequency to his contemporaries, one who sees passes that others cannot conceive and executes them with a precision that makes it all look deceptively simple.

The backdrop to this triumph makes it all the more compelling. United overcame the January dismissal of former head coach Ruben Amorim and secured Champions League qualification under Michael Carrick, with Fernandes the constant, animating force throughout the chaos. When Amorim had deployed the Portuguese in a deeper midfield role, it was widely acknowledged that such a positional constraint did not play to his strengths. Carrick’s appointment and the decision to return Fernandes to a more advanced, free-roaming role proved transformative — not just for the player, but for the entire club.

On the subject of repositioning his captain, Carrick was characteristically straightforward: “It is what he’s good at.” Simple words, but they carried with them the acknowledgement that tactical clarity had unlocked something that had been partially suppressed. From the moment Fernandes was freed to operate in the spaces he relishes, United’s season changed its character entirely.
Carrick was equally effusive when his captain won the FWA award: “It’s fantastic, delighted for Bruno. I think he fully deserves it, an award like this, judged over such a long period of time, whoever gets it is fully deserving. Bruno, the season that he has had, his performances since he’s shown that, he’s in his best years and the level of performances has been, as the award shows, better than most.”

Fernandes secured 45 per cent of the votes from the FWA’s 900-plus members and edged out Arsenal’s Declan Rice by just 28 votes to become the first United player to receive that particular award since Wayne Rooney in 2010. The closeness of that poll perhaps reflects genuine admiration for Rice, who has himself had a superb season at the Emirates, but even the most ardent Arsenal supporter would struggle to dispute that Fernandes’s statistics and impact gave him the decisive edge.

He now becomes the first United player since Nemanja Matic to win the Premier League Player of the Season award, and joins a list of Old Trafford recipients that includes Peter Schmeichel, Dwight Yorke, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney. That is rarefied company, and it places Fernandes firmly within the canon of genuinely great Manchester United players a distinction he has earned through consistency and leadership rather than simply individual brilliance.
His 20th assist came in the 3-2 victory over Nottingham Forest, setting up Bryan Mbeumo for what proved to be the decisive goal.

On reaching the historic milestone, Fernandes was measured in his response: “I’m very happy for the assist and for the win, and to finish the season on a high. I got to 20, let’s see we have one more game. It’s the highest I’ve done in the Premier League, so I am very happy with it.” The pragmatism in those words the immediate pivot to the next match, the next opportunity is entirely in keeping with the character of a man who has refused to allow personal achievement to eclipse collective purpose.

At the FWA awards ceremony, flanked by Michael Carrick, he offered a revealing insight into what motivates him most: “Scoring goals is always the best feeling. But for assists, seeing the joy on their faces is really enjoyable for me.” There is something genuinely touching about a player of his talent finding as much satisfaction in the creation as the conclusion, and it explains why teammates so evidently adore playing alongside him.

When asked about his long-term future — amid earlier speculation linking him with a move to the Saudi Pro League — Fernandes was unequivocal: “Obviously going into next season, we all know that the aim of this club always has to be winning.” He also reflected on the ambition that brought him to England from Sporting CP in January 2020: “I think in the first place when a player chooses to come to Man United it’s not because you just want to wear the shirt.” The implication was clear trophies remain the measure, and the return to Champions League football is a beginning rather than an end.

What Fernandes has achieved this season transcends the personal accolades, impressive as they are. He has been the difference between a Manchester United that was drifting towards mediocrity and one that enters the summer with genuine optimism and European football secured. In a campaign without a trophy, without the traditional markers of success at a club of United’s size, his individual brilliance has been the story and the Premier League, recognising that, has given him its highest individual honour. It is hard to imagine a more deserving recipient.