Manchester United Star Snatches Premier League Player Of The Season Prize
By 813 Staff
Bruno Fernandes has officially been named the Premier League Player of the Season for the 2025-26 campaign, league sources confirm, cementing a historic individual run that the Manchester United captain has been building toward for years.
The announcement, first broken by transfer insider Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) late Thursday, ends weeks of speculation among pundits and bookmakers. The Portugal international beat out a shortlist that included Manchester City’s Erling Haaland and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, though those close to the situation say the voting was not particularly close. Fernandes registered 22 goals and 16 assists in league play this term, dragging a United side that struggled with defensive consistency back into the Champions League conversation. The front office has been quietly planning a summer overhaul around him, and this award gives them—and the player—significant leverage in those discussions.
What makes this selection notable isn’t just the raw production, because Fernandes has been supplying elite numbers since he arrived in January 2020. It’s the context. United finished third, 12 points behind champions Liverpool, but without Fernandes’s contributions in big moments—his brace at Anfield, the last-minute winner at Tottenham, the captain’s performance against Arsenal in April—the team likely would have been fighting for Europa League placement. League sources confirm the voting panel weighed “narrative and impact” heavily, and the narrative this season was clear: United went as Fernandes went.
The award is voted on by a combination of fans, club captains, a panel of football experts, and media members. Fernandes becomes the fourth United player to win the honor, joining Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, and Cristiano Ronaldo, and the first since Van Persie in 2012-13. For context, Ronaldo and Van Persie each lifted the league title in their award-winning seasons; Fernandes did it without a trophy. That fact alone tells you how respected his individual output has become.
As for what happens next, the expectation around Carrington is that Fernandes will use this as a platform entering contract extension talks. He has two years remaining on his current deal, and the front office has been clear that he is the cornerstone. A formal summer announcement on a new agreement is expected before preseason, though nothing has been signed yet. For now, the hardware is on the table—and the debate about United’s best player in the post-Ferguson era just got a lot louder.
Source: https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/2058136328693244076
