The 53rd PFA Awards took place on Tuesday night at the Manchester Opera House, with the game\u2019s leading players across England recognised for their 2025-26 seasons. The ceremony covered the Premier League, the EFL Championship, League One and Two, the Women\u2019s Super League and the Women\u2019s Super League 2.<\/p>\n
Bruno Fernandes claimed the men\u2019s Player of the Year award after a remarkable campaign for Manchester United. The midfielder set a Premier League record with 21 assists in a single season, and he became the first United player since Wayne Rooney in 2010 to win the prize.<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s category, Manchester City forward Khadija \u201cBunny\u201d Shaw was voted Player of the Year for a second time. Shaw scored 21 goals in 22 matches last season and played a key role as City won the title. Her recognition completed a double after she was also named women\u2019s Player of the Year by the Football Writers\u2019 Association in May.<\/p>\n
Fernandes also completed a double of his own after being selected as men\u2019s Player of the Year by the Football Writers\u2019 Association in May.<\/p>\n
City youngster Nico O\u2019Reilly, 21, received the men\u2019s Young Player of the Year award, while Arsenal forward Olivia Smith, 22, won the women\u2019s Young Player of the Year honour for the second straight season.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, former Middlesbrough midfielder Hayden Hackney, now with Everton, was named Championship Player of the Year. Birmingham City forward Lily Crosthwaite collected the WSL2 Player of the Year award, while former Leyton Orient forward Dom Ballard, now at Championship side Bristol City, was named League One Player of the Year.<\/p>\n
The event also included the Premier League, WSL, Championship, League One and WSL2 Teams of the Year, with the full line-ups listed separately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fernandes and Shaw headlined the 2026 PFA Awards after standout seasons in England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1249,238,179,172],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-18757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","category-manchester-city","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757","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=18757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}