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Arsenal's Olivia Smith Wins Second Straight PFA Young Player of the Year Award

Errol MayfieldPublished 21h ago3 min readBased on 5 sources
Arsenal's Olivia Smith Wins Second Straight PFA Young Player of the Year Award
Photo by Legoktm / CC BY-SA 4.0

Arsenal's Olivia Smith has won the PFA Young Player of the Year award for the second season running, cementing her status as one of the most exciting talents in the women's game.

The Professional Footballers' Association — the players' union, whose annual awards are voted on by fellow professionals — announced Smith as the 2026 winner on 25 August. She had been shortlisted among the top six candidates back in June, alongside the American forward Alyssa Thompson (Arsenal.com).

Upon collecting the trophy, Smith was clear about her ambitions. She wants to "keep setting standards high," she said (BBC Sport).

That drive has already taken her a long way in a short time. Smith first won the award for the 2024/25 season, when she was Liverpool's top scorer with 25 appearances across all competitions (thePFA.com). A move to Arsenal followed, and she has picked up right where she left off — recognised again as the best young player in the country, this time in red and white (thePFA.com).

In the same round of awards, Bruno Fernandes and Luke Shaw took the PFA Players' Player of the Year honours on the men's side (BBC Sport). But the night belonged as much to a 21-year-old who has now collected the young player trophy twice before many of her peers have earned a single nomination.

What stands out is the trajectory. Smith was turning heads at Liverpool, finishing as her club's leading scorer. She moved to Arsenal and immediately produced a season good enough to earn back-to-back recognition from the people who know best: the players she faces every week. Voted by your opponents is the highest compliment football offers, and Smith has now received it twice.

For Arsenal, the award is another signal that their investment in young, proven talent is paying off. For the women's game more broadly, a player winning the young player award in consecutive seasons — across two different clubs — tells you the ceiling keeps rising. Standards are not just high. They are climbing.

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