The Sports Guru
The PFA has published its full shortlists for the 2025/26 Men's and Women's Player of the Year awards, and the six names in each category tell a revealing story about where the power in English football now sits. This piece breaks down the nominations, considers what they say about the season just concluded, and looks ahead to what the August ceremony could mean for those involved.
Arsenal's Premier League title triumph has left its fingerprints across the PFA shortlists in a way that no single club has managed for some time. Three members of Mikel Arteta's title-winning squad, Declan Rice, David Raya and Gabriel Magalhaes, occupy exactly half of the six-man Men's Player of the Year shortlist, a concentration of nominations that underlines just how collectively dominant the Gunners were across the campaign. Yet the individual award is far from a formality. Manchester City's Erling Haaland claimed his third Premier League Golden Boot after scoring 27 league goals this season, and few panels of professional footballers overlook that kind of output when casting their votes. It is worth noting that the PFA award has historically been won by players whose teams also lifted the title, which sets up a genuine tension this year between Arsenal's collective dominance and Haaland's individual numbers on a City side that did not.
The women's shortlist is no less competitive. Chelsea's Lauren James, Arsenal's Alessia Russo and Manchester City's Bunny Shaw, the 2023/24 winner who recently signed a new four-year deal at the Etihad, headline a six-strong list that spans four clubs and represents the breadth of quality the WSL produced in 2025/26. The winners in both categories will be announced at a ceremony on Tuesday 25 August at The Opera House in Manchester.
What makes this particular set of nominations worth examining closely is the way they reflect two distinct models of excellence: the collective and the individual. Arsenal's trio earned their places through their roles in a title-winning system, whereas Haaland's case rests almost entirely on a goal return that most strikers would not approach in two seasons. Bruno Fernandes, meanwhile, arrives on the shortlist having already collected the Football Writers' Association Player of the Year award, making him arguably the form candidate heading into the PFA vote.
Arsenal's Title Win Casts a Long Shadow
It is unusual for a single club to place three nominees in a six-man shortlist, and it raises an immediate question about whether PFA voters are rewarding individual brilliance or collective achievement. Rice's influence at the base of Arsenal's midfield has evolved considerably since his move from West Ham; he is no longer simply a defensive shield but a progressive, technically assured operator who drives attacks and protects the backline in the same phase of play. That evolution matters for his candidacy: the PFA electorate tends to recognise players who are visibly decisive, and Rice's expanded role in Arsenal's build-up gives voters something more than defensive diligence to reward. Raya, the Spanish goalkeeper, has brought a sweeper-keeper dimension to Arsenal's structure that allowed the defence to press higher and more aggressively. Gabriel Magalhaes, for his part, has been one of the most commanding centre-backs in the division, combining aerial authority with an increasingly refined reading of the game positionally.
Together, the three nominees represent the defensive and midfield spine that gave Arsenal their title. If the PFA electorate votes on the basis of sustained impact across a championship-winning campaign, any of the three has a credible claim. The challenge is that the award has historically tended towards attacking players, and the presence of Haaland and Cherki on the same list makes it harder for a defender or midfielder to prevail.
Fernandes, Cherki and the Challenge from Outside North London
Bruno Fernandes is the one player on the men's shortlist who arrives with another major individual honour already secured this season, the Football Writers' Association award, suggesting a broad professional consensus around his quality regardless of Manchester United's overall campaign. In a year when United will not have won the title, Fernandes sustaining that level of individual recognition speaks to how consistently he imposed himself on matches across the division. That is a genuinely difficult thing to do without the structural advantages that come with playing in a title-winning side, and it may resonate with fellow professionals who understand exactly how hard it is.
Rayan Cherki's inclusion alongside Haaland from Manchester City adds a layer of intrigue. The young Frenchman has evidently made a significant impression in his debut Premier League season, and his presence on both the senior and young player shortlists reflects how quickly he has adapted. It is rare for a player to be considered for both categories simultaneously, and it positions City as the club most likely to split Arsenal's vote rather than allow one Gunner to consolidate it.
The Women's Category: Shaw, James and Russo Circle Each Other
In the women's award, the dynamic is equally open. Bunny Shaw is a proven winner of the prize, having taken it in 2023/24, and her new four-year commitment to Manchester City suggests both she and the club believe her best years are still ahead of her. Lauren James has been one of the most technically gifted forwards in the WSL for several seasons, and a strong 2025/26 campaign at Chelsea would make her case compelling to voters who have perhaps felt she has been underrecognised in previous cycles. There is a reasonable argument that James's ability to beat players in tight spaces and create chances from nothing is the kind of quality that professional footballers, as voters, appreciate in a way that broader public recognition sometimes fails to capture.
Alessia Russo's nomination completes a compelling Arsenal double act alongside Rice in the men's category. Her physicality and finishing have been central to Arsenal's women's season, and a concurrent title run in the WSL would only strengthen her candidacy. The addition of Yui Hasegawa, Jess Park and Aston Villa's Kirsty Hanson broadens the shortlist usefully, ensuring the award does not become a three-horse conversation by default.
Young Players and the Next Wave
The Young Player of the Year shortlists carry their own significance. In the men's category, Arsenal's Max Dowman and Liverpool's Rio Ngumoha represent the emerging generation from two of England's biggest clubs, while Kobbie Mainoo's inclusion from Manchester United suggests he has continued the development that first attracted widespread attention. Cherki's dual nomination in both the senior and young men's categories is the standout structural curiosity: it reflects the difficulty of categorising a talent that has already outgrown the conventional idea of a breakthrough player.
On the women's side, Man City's Laura Blindkilde Brown and Chelsea's Alyssa Thompson are the headline names, with London City Lionesses' Freya Godfrey and Tottenham's Toko Koga providing some welcome representation for clubs outside the traditional top four. The inclusion of Olivia Smith for Arsenal and Veerle Buurman for Chelsea reinforces Chelsea and Arsenal's dominance of the women's game at both senior and emerging levels.
Verdict: A Ceremony Worth Watching
The PFA awards ceremony on 25 August will arrive at the precise moment when the transfer window is in full flow and pre-season narratives are forming, which means the winners will carry genuine weight heading into 2026/27. For Rice in particular, collecting the award would crystallise his transformation from a player associated with graft and physicality into one recognised by his own peers as the best in the country. That peer recognition is the element that separates the PFA award from its counterparts: it is not journalists or the public voting, but the players themselves, which lends a different kind of legitimacy to whoever wins. For Haaland, a third Golden Boot that converts into a PFA award would be a statement of individual supremacy that transcends the team context around him. Either outcome would be entirely defensible, and that ambiguity is precisely what makes this one of the more genuinely contested PFA shortlists in recent memory.
Frequently Asked Questions
The article notes that the PFA award has historically favoured attacking players, which works against the Arsenal trio of Rice, Raya and Gabriel Magalhaes despite their title-winning credentials. The presence of both Haaland and Cherki on the same shortlist further reduces the likelihood of a defender or midfielder taking the prize this year.
Fernandes has already collected the Football Writers' Association Player of the Year award, making him the form candidate heading into the PFA vote according to the article. That recognition from the football writing community gives him a momentum that none of the other shortlisted players currently shares.
Haaland scored 27 Premier League goals to claim his third Golden Boot, a return the article describes as something most strikers would not approach across two full seasons. His case for the award rests almost entirely on that individual output, though the tension is that Manchester City did not win the title, whereas the PFA award has historically gone to players from title-winning clubs.
Since his move from West Ham, Rice developed from a defensive shield into a progressive, technically assured operator who drives attacks as well as protecting the backline within the same phase of play. The article argues that this expanded role in Arsenal's build-up gives PFA voters something more substantial to reward than defensive diligence alone.
Shaw is Manchester City's striker and the winner of the 2023/24 Women's Player of the Year award. The article mentions that she recently signed a new four-year deal at the Etihad, which places her nomination against a backdrop of significant long-term commitment to City alongside the competitive challenge of Chelsea's Lauren James and Arsenal's Alessia Russo.
Sources: Reporting draws on PFA awards shortlist information and Premier League season statistics as published by the Professional Footballers' Association.
