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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Premier League Player Of The Season

The Premier League Player of the Season is an annual association football award presented to players in England, which recognises the most outstanding player in the Premier League each season. The recipient is chosen by a panel assembled by the league's sponsors consisting of members of "football's governing bodies, the media and fans", and is announced in the second or third week of May. For sponsorship purposes, from 1994 to 2001 it was called the Carling Player of the Year; from 2001 to 2004 as the Barclaycard Player of the Year; and from 2004 to 2016 as the Barclays Player of the Season. Since the 2016–17 season, it is called the EA Sports Player of the Season.

The Premier League was founded in 1992, when the clubs of the First Division left the Football League and established a new commercially independent league that negotiated its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The newly formed league had no sponsor for its inaugural season until Carling agreed to a four-year £12 million deal that started the following season. That same season, Carling introduced individual awards for players, such as the Golden Boot. However, the Player of the Month and Player of the Season awards were only first bestowed during the 1994–95 season. The first Player of the Season award was given to Blackburn Rovers striker Alan Shearer, who won the Premier League title with his team and the Golden Boot that season.

Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidić and Kevin De Bruyne have been Player of the Season on two occasions each and are the only players to have won the award more than once, with Ronaldo having achieved this in consecutive years (2007 and 2008). Eight players were the Premier League's leading goalscorer and won the Golden Boot alongside the Player of the Season award. Four of these players – Kevin Phillips, Henry, Ronaldo and Luis Suárez – went on to win the European Golden Shoe in the same season. 11 players have won the Premier League trophy with their respective clubs in the same year they received the award, with Ronaldo and Vidić each accomplishing the feat on two occasions with Manchester United. Ronaldo is the only player to be named Player of the Season and win the FIFA World Player of the Year; when he accomplished this in 2008, he became the first player from the Premier League to be voted the world's top footballer. In 2023 Manchester City's Erling Haaland became the first player in Premier League history to win both Player of the Season and Young Player of the Season awards for the same campaign.

The current holder of the award is Manchester City's Phil Foden.

Winners

Alan Shearer wearing a black jumper with a white collar visible.
Alan Shearer won the inaugural Premier League Player of the Season in 1995.
Peter Schmeichel, with blonde hair and wearing a dark blue sweater, looks down towards his left with an unidentified man in the left background.
Peter Schmeichel, the 1996 winner, is the only goalkeeper to win the award.
Cristiano Ronaldo – wearing a long-sleeved red jersey, white shorts with a number 7 on the left-leg side and a white armband on the left arm – prepares to take a free kick.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the 2007 and 2008 recipient, won his latter award alongside the FIFA World Player of the Year.
Luis Suárez – wearing a red Liverpool FC jersey with the Standard Chartered sponsor logo at the front centre and shorts with a number 7 partially obscured on the left-leg side and the club crest on the right – lifts his hand with his mouth partly opened.
Luis Suárez, the 2014 recipient of the award, is one of four different players to win the European Golden Shoe alongside the Player of the Season award.
Key
Player (X) Name of the player and number of times they had won the award at that point (if more than one)
Indicates player also won the European Golden Shoe in the same season
Indicates player also won the European Golden Shoe and FIFA World Player of the Year in the same season
# Indicates player also won the European Golden Shoe and Premier League Young Player of the Season award in the same season
§ Denotes the club were Premier League champions in the same season
Premier League Player of the Season winners
Season Player Position Nationality Club Ref(s)
1994–95 Alan Shearer Forward  England Blackburn Rovers
1995–96 Peter Schmeichel Goalkeeper  Denmark Manchester United
1996–97 Juninho Paulista Midfielder  Brazil Middlesbrough
1997–98 Michael Owen Forward  England Liverpool
1998–99 Dwight Yorke Forward  Trinidad and Tobago Manchester United
1999–2000 Kevin Phillips Forward  England Sunderland
2000–01 Patrick Vieira Midfielder  France Arsenal
2001–02 Freddie Ljungberg Midfielder  Sweden Arsenal
2002–03 Ruud van Nistelrooy Forward  Netherlands Manchester United
2003–04 Thierry Henry (1) Forward  France Arsenal
2004–05 Frank Lampard Midfielder  England Chelsea
2005–06 Thierry Henry (2) Forward  France Arsenal
2006–07 Cristiano Ronaldo (1) Forward  Portugal Manchester United
2007–08 Cristiano Ronaldo (2) Forward  Portugal Manchester United
2008–09 Nemanja Vidić (1) Defender  Serbia Manchester United
2009–10 Wayne Rooney Forward  England Manchester United
2010–11 Nemanja Vidić (2) Defender  Serbia Manchester United
2011–12 Vincent Kompany Defender  Belgium Manchester City
2012–13 Gareth Bale Midfielder  Wales Tottenham Hotspur
2013–14 Luis Suárez Forward  Uruguay Liverpool
2014–15 Eden Hazard Midfielder  Belgium Chelsea
2015–16 Jamie Vardy Forward  England Leicester City
2016–17 N'Golo Kanté Midfielder  France Chelsea
2017–18 Mohamed Salah Forward  Egypt Liverpool
2018–19 Virgil van Dijk Defender  Netherlands Liverpool
2019–20 Kevin De Bruyne (1) Midfielder  Belgium Manchester City
2020–21 Rúben Dias Defender  Portugal Manchester City
2021–22 Kevin De Bruyne (2) Midfielder  Belgium Manchester City
2022–23 Erling Haaland Forward  Norway Manchester City
2023–24 Phil Foden Midfielder  England Manchester City

Multiple awards won by players

The following table lists the number of awards won by players who have won at least two Player of the Season awards.

Players in bold are still active in the Premier League.

Awards Player Country Seasons
2 Kevin De Bruyne  Belgium 2019–20, 2021–22
Thierry Henry  France 2003–04, 2005–06
Cristiano Ronaldo  Portugal 2006–07, 2007–08
Nemanja Vidić  Serbia 2008–09, 2010–11

Awards won by nationality

Country Players Total
 England 7 7
 Belgium 3 4
 France 3 4
 Portugal 2 3
 Netherlands 2 2
 Serbia 1 2
 Brazil 1 1
 Denmark 1 1
 Egypt 1 1
 Norway 1 1
 Sweden 1 1
 Trinidad and Tobago 1 1
 Uruguay 1 1
 Wales 1 1

Awards won by position

Position Players Total
Forward 12 14
Midfielder 9 10
Defender 4 5
Goalkeeper 1 1

Awards won by club

Club Players Total
Manchester United 6 8
Manchester City 5 6
Arsenal 3 4
Liverpool 4 4
Chelsea 3 3
Leicester City 1 1
Blackburn Rovers 1 1
Middlesbrough 1 1
Sunderland 1 1
Tottenham Hotspur 1 1

See also