Bruno Fernandes wins PFA Player of the Year after record assist season
Bruno Fernandes has been named PFA Player of the Year for 2025-26.
The Manchester United captain completes a clean sweep. He also won the Premier League and Football Writers' Player of the Year awards for last season, BBC Sport reported on 13 October.
The numbers explain why. Fernandes scored nine goals and provided 21 assists, the final pass that sets up a goal, as United finished third in the Premier League.
Those 21 assists broke a Premier League record. Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne had jointly held it for 23 years.
He delivered when it mattered most. Over the final 11 games of last season, United scored 21 goals. Fernandes scored or assisted 12 of them.
That run took United back into the Champions League after a two-year absence. In the decisive seven-game stretch, he was involved in nine of the team's 12 goals.
The 20th assist came in a 3-2 win over Forest in May, which left United third on 68 points with one game to play, Reuters reported at the time. He then broke the record outright on the final day.
What makes this stand out is the contrast with right now. The holder of all three awards is fighting form and fitness at the start of the new season.
Fernandes has played every minute of United's first six league games. All of his three goals and one assist this season came in one match, the second game against Ipswich on 30 August. That remains United's only win so far.
United have six points from six games. It is their worst start to a league campaign in 40 years.
The underlying numbers have dipped too. He is averaging 3.3 shots per game, his second-highest figure at United. But only 0.8 per game have hit the target, his joint-second lowest.
Creativity is down. He is averaging 2.5 chances created per game, down from 4.0 last season. He has created one big chance, the kind of opening a player is expected to score from, a lofted pass for Bryan Mbeumo against Ipswich. Last season he averaged one per game.
There is some context. Fernandes was left out of Portugal's recent Nations League match against Norway, with coach Jorge Jesus saying he was playing through pain.
He then played the full 90 minutes in United's 4-0 Champions League win against Sabah FK. Manager Michael Carrick said the issue was manageable, that Fernandes was able to play, and that he was pretty much over it.
For fans, this is the strange pull of football. One season gives you a record that stood for more than two decades. The next asks how quickly its hero can find that rhythm again.
