Bruno Fernandes has been named the Premier League Player of the Season for the 2025/26 campaign following his performances for Manchester United.
The club announced the development on Saturday, describing Fernandes as a key figure in United’s top three finish.
“Our skipper has had an outstanding campaign, with his performances an undisputable driving force behind the team’s top three finish and qualification for next term’s UEFA Champions League under Michael Carrick,” the club said.
Fernandes has scored eight league goals and registered 20 assists this season, equaling the Premier League single-season assist record previously held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne.
The Portuguese midfielder could surpass the record when United face Brighton & Hove Albion in their final league game on Sunday.
The award was decided through a combination of votes from fans and a panel of football experts.
Fernandes had earlier won Manchester United’s Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award for the fifth time and was also named Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers’ Association.
He was shortlisted for the award alongside Gabriel Magalhães, David Raya, Declan Rice, Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo, Morgan Gibbs-White and Igor Thiago.
Fernandes becomes the seventh Manchester United player to win the award since its introduction in the 1994/95 season.
In a related development, Pep Guardiola has revealed his biggest regret at Manchester City was ignoring Joe Hart’s plea to remain the club’s goalkeeper.
Guardiola will take charge of his final match as City boss on Sunday against Aston Villa, bringing down the curtain on a glittering 10-year reign in Manchester.
The Spaniard has won 20 trophies with City, including six Premier League titles and the club’s first Champions League crown.
But Guardiola has one major regret about his remarkably successful stay at the Etihad Stadium.
Also Read: Premier league names Fernandes player of the month
Hart, then an England regular, had urged Guardiola to give him a chance to show he could fulfil the manager’s desire for a ‘keeper capable of starting attacks with his distribution.
“I want to confess, I have regrets. When you take a lot of decisions, a lot, lot of decisions, you make mistakes,” Guardiola told Sky Sports.
“But there is one regret that I have deep inside for many years, that I didn’t give a chance to Joe Hart to be with me to prove himself how good a keeper he was.
“I should have done, not because… all respect for Claudio, all respect for Ede who came in, they were important, but in that moment, I could have said, ‘Okay Joe, let’s try to do it together. If it doesn’t work, okay, we’ll change it’.
“But it happened. Life is sometimes… I have to take decisions, and sometimes I’m not fair enough.”
Admitting he had learnt from the experience of dealing with Hart, who has said he was furious with the decision at the time Guardiola added: “Maybe with time then and learning. But I regret it from that time.
“In that moment, I said, ‘I believe in that’. Always I am stubborn in my decisions when I believe in that.
“When I have doubts, I talk with people, but when I’m completely sure, 100 per cent, I say, ‘Guys, we have to do it in that way’, and I have been at a club that has supported me absolutely in everything with that.”
The intensely driven Guardiola said dealing with human emotions is one of the hardest parts of management, particularly with players who are not in the team.
“If in that I failed, I do apologize, but it never, never was my intention or the intention of the club,” he said.
AFP
