Bruno Fernandes Wins PFA Player of the Year: What It Tells Us About United’s Season and the Premier League’s Best XI

Bruno Fernandes has won the PFA Men's Player of the Year for 2025-26, and honestly, it's hard to argue with it. Twenty-one assists in a single Premier League season. That's a record. Better than Kevin de Bruyne. Better than Thierry Henry. For a player who arrived at Old Trafford as a lifeline signing back in January 2020, this is the peak of his individual career.

The football world tends to reward winners. Fernandes won nothing with United this season. No cups, no league title, just third place and a Champions League spot. And yet here he is, PFA winner and FWA winner, sweeping both major individual awards in English football. That tells you everything about how dominant his numbers were.

The Record That Changes the Conversation

Twenty-one assists is not just a record. It's a statement. The previous mark of 20 was shared by two of the greatest creative players this league has ever seen, and Fernandes topped them both at 31 years old, an age when most playmakers are beginning to slow down.

His nearest rival in the assist charts this season was Rayan Cherki with 12. That's not even close. Fernandes almost doubled the second-best tally in the division. For context, nine goals and 21 assists in 35 league games works out to a goal involvement roughly every 1.4 games. That's elite by any measure.

The fact that United only finished third despite that output is the interesting part. It suggests the squad around him is still not good enough, which raises a question worth asking going into next season: how much better could United be if they actually built a team worthy of his creativity?

Khadija Shaw Is Simply in a Different Class

On the women's side, Khadija Shaw winning the PFA award is almost becoming routine now, and that's not a knock on her, it's a reflection of just how good she is.

Three consecutive WSL golden boots. The first player to score 20 or more goals in three different WSL seasons. She scored 21 in 22 league appearances this term, added five more in the FA Cup including the opener in the final, and delivered hat-tricks against Aston Villa and Tottenham along the way. Man City won the WSL title and the FA Cup, and Shaw was central to both.

At 29, she's playing the best football of her career. The football world outside the WSL still doesn't fully appreciate what she is, but the numbers speak for themselves. She's now pulled ahead of Vivienne Miedema and Sam Kerr in the all-time WSL golden boot standings. That's the company she belongs in.

The PFA Team of the Year and What It Reveals

The Premier League team of the year is dominated by Arsenal and Man City, which makes sense given Arsenal won the title and City finished second. Arsenal have five representatives, including the entire back line from Raya to Timber, Saliba, Gabriel and Rice. City contribute four in O'Reilly, Cherki, Haaland and Semenyo.

The two standout inclusions outside the top two are Fernandes, which is obvious given the award, and Igor Thiago from Brentford, who makes the team of the year on debut. Thiago getting into that XI ahead of pretty much every other forward in the division is a genuine surprise and a sign that Brentford punched well above their weight this season.

Nico O'Reilly winning young player of the year is also worth flagging. At 21, playing regularly in a title-winning City side and performing in a League Cup final is a strong foundation. He's one to watch heading into next season, and if City build around him properly, his ceiling is high.

Our Take

Fernandes is a deserving winner, full stop. The record-breaking assist tally in a trophy-less season is actually more impressive in some ways than winning it with a dominant side. He carried United to Champions League football almost single-handedly.

The bigger football story here might be what happens next. With that creative output available, United need to build around him this summer rather than rely on him to paper over the cracks again. Shaw, meanwhile, looks like she could keep winning this award for another two or three years if she stays fit.

Two Manchester clubs, four individual awards, and a team of the year dominated by the division's top two. The gap between Arsenal and City and everyone else in English football feels as wide as ever right now.