Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes was named Premier League player of the season on Friday after a campaign that carried his side to third place and back into the Champions League. The Portuguese midfielder, who also won the Football Writers' Association men's Player of the Year award this month, edged a shortlist that included players from Arsenal, Manchester City, Brentford and Nottingham Forest.
Fernandes, 29, made the award his with a season defined by output and influence. He scored eight goals in 37 games and created 132 chances, 43 more than Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai. Last weekend, against Nottingham Forest, he set up his 20th goal of the season to equal the Premier League assist record for a single campaign. The winner is decided by a mix of public votes and a panel of football experts, giving Fernandes a rare double recognition in the same month.
The award is another marker of how heavily United leaned on him in a season that ended with the club in third place and back in Europe’s top competition. Fernandes is the first United player to win the Premier League player of the season award since defender Nemanja Vidic in 2011, a gap that underlines how long the club has waited for a player to dominate the league’s individual honours in this way.
That context matters because the shortlist was not short on competition. Arsenal's David Raya, Gabriel and Declan Rice, Manchester City's Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo, Brentford's Igor Thiago and Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White were also in the running, but Fernandes' combination of goals, chance creation and consistency set him apart. It was not the cleanest Manchester United season, but it was the one in which their captain repeatedly supplied the final pass when the team needed it most.
The same week brought another Manchester City honour, with Nico O'Reilly named Premier League Young Player of the Season. O'Reilly scored five goals and added three assists in 34 league appearances, finishing ahead of Rayan Cherki, Junior Kroupi, Alex Scott, Kobbie Mainoo, Lewis Hall, Michael Kayode and Matheus Fernandes. For Fernandes, though, the bigger story is simpler: in a year when United needed a steady hand, he delivered enough to carry the league's top individual prize.
For readers tracking the wider Premier League finish, the final week also brought the sort of pressure that defined the season, from the title chase to Europe and survival. More on that packed finish can be found in the Epl Scores coverage of the league's last round.
