This season\u2019s Player of the Season shortlist presents no obvious front-runner. Arsenal\u2019s collective balance has produced results without a single unmistakable soloist, while Manchester City\u2019s usual talisman has produced a campaign that reads as a relative dip by his own extraordinary standards.<\/p>\n
Erling Haaland (Appearances: 34; Goals: 26; Assists: 8) remains a top scorer yet has not matched his personal peak. The 26-goal haul is impressive but is his third-highest Premier League return across four campaigns. Haaland has been candid about expectations: \u201cPeople are more shocked when I don\u2019t score than when I score.\u201d His run between Christmas Day and mid-April featured just one non-Premier League goal in a 13-game spell.<\/p>\n
David Raya (Appearances: 36; Wins: 24; Clean Sheets: 18) complicates the criteria. His high-profile saves in Europe and the observation that his absence from the Carabao Cup final contributed to Arsenal\u2019s limp defeat at Wembley are part of the season narrative. Opta\u2019s shot-quality analysis suggests an average goalkeeper would have conceded about 24 goals; Raya conceded 26. His ball-playing strengths are notable, but his domestic shot-stopping record has not been exceptional.<\/p>\n
Morgan Gibbs-White (Appearances: 35; Goals: 13; Assists: 4) began the season shadowed by transfer speculation and an ill fit under Ange Postecoglou. Under Sean Dyche and later V\u00edtor Pereira he has produced strong form. Since the turn of the year he has scored nine non-penalty goals and has driven Nottingham Forest to the seventh-best run in the division, though his full-season record reflects the early disruption.<\/p>\n
Igor Thiago (Appearances: 36; Goals: 22; Assists: 1) has delivered a breakthrough campaign for Brentford after injury setbacks last term. The 24-year-old has been prolific, and with two weeks remaining he has been outscored across Europe\u2019s top five leagues only by Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Harry Kane and Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n
Gabriel (Appearances: 30; Goals: 3; Clean Sheets: 16) embodies Arsenal\u2019s defensive strength and set-piece threat. His aerial presence is a constant in both boxes. He is the more obvious force in the centre-back pairing, though William Saliba, who was not nominated, has drawn praise.<\/p>\n
Antoine Semenyo (Appearances: 35; Goals: 16; Assists: 4) excelled at Bournemouth, contributing to or creating 38% of their Premier League goals in the season\u2019s first half. His mid-season move to Manchester City has seen him become part of their attacking quartet in 2026 and a joint-top scorer for the club in the league since his arrival. Bournemouth have been unbeaten in 15 matches without him.<\/p>\n
All nominees present credible cases; the decision will rest on how voters weight sustained season-long contribution against recent form and moments of influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A concise evaluation of the Premier League Player of the Season nominees, their numbers and case 1st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,739,728,238,298,172],"tags":[1162,801,1637],"class_list":["post-13807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-bournemouth","category-brentford","category-manchester-city","category-nottingham-forest","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-assists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}