Football writer Dan Edwards has revealed his top 11 Premier League players of 2025. Now it's your turn to rank your favourites from best to 11th in the poll below.
1. Declan Rice (Arsenal)
Declan Rice is quite simply Arsenal’s beating heart, and the expectation for many is that he will ultimately become captain for club and country for many years to come.
The midfielder contributes to so many facets of play for the current Premier League leaders, and his influence across the entire pitch makes him a unique player at the top level.
For a player who started his career at centre-back, it is hugely impressive that Rice ranks fourth in 2025 for chances created, with 65.
Watch: The best of Rice so far this season
Such is the quality of his delivery at dead-ball situations, he has also become a specialist in that regard, too, which goes some way to explaining his tally of 17 "big chances" created, for which he ranks second behind only Mohamed Salah (19).
Rice has become synonymous with lung-busting runs from deep to bring his team up the pitch, and it is no surprise to see him leading all midfield players for progressive carries (310) as a result.
2. Erling Haaland (Manchester City)
Such is his immense goalscoring prowess, Manchester City star Erling Haaland probably has the best case of anyone in this list as the outright best performing Premier League player for 2025.
The Norwegian is without competition in the scoring charts, netting 27 goals in the Premier League in 2025 - 10 more than the player with the next most, Crystal Palace forward Jean-Phillipe Mateta.
Haaland is rewriting the history books. At the start of December, he became the quickest player to score 100 Premier League goals, achieving this in just 111 matches. The previous record of 124 matches, which had stood for nearly 30 years, was set by Alan Shearer on 30 December 1995.
Watch: 100 Haaland goals in 100 seconds
Haaland is eyeing up Shearer’s greatest achievement, the most goals scored by one player in Premier League history (260).
If the Norwegian can repeat this year’s exploits in 2026, then that record might be under threat sooner than we think.
3. Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest)
Elliot Anderson has had a meteoric rise over the past year, solidifying his status as one of the Premier League's best midfielders and stating his case to be a starter for England at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. He is one of the most influential all-rounders in European football, and is essentially a player without weaknesses.
Ahead of their respective matches on Tuesday 30 December, Bruno Fernandes (381) was the only midfielder with more line-breaking passes than Anderson (283) in 2025, while the Nottingham Forest star leads all players this calendar year for duels won (266) and possession recoveries (273).
Forest fans should enjoy watching Anderson while they can, as it won't be long until the club are inundated with questions about his availability.
4. Antoine Semenyo (AFC Bournemouth)
Antoine Semenyo might be the most sought-after player in the Premier League right now, and one look at what he has produced for Bournemouth this year gives you a big enough clue as to why that is.
The ambipedal winger (able to use both feet) has contributed a combined total of 21 goals and assists in 2025, the joint-fourth-most of any player, all while playing for a side who are not competing at the top of the table.
Watch: EVERY Semenyo goal and assist from 2024/25
When excluding penalties, the only player to score more goals than Semenyo (14) this calendar year is Haaland (24). Coming second to Haaland is pretty much the best you can ask for in that chart.
The only Ghanaian player to register more goal involvements than Semenyo in a single calendar year in Premier League history is Tony Yeboah for Leeds United in 1995 (25).
5. Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)
Where would Manchester United be without Fernandes? Few teams are as reliant on one player, and their captain’s influence on their play is almost unparalleled across the division.
Fernandes has simply been the best creative player in the Premier League in 2025, as showcased by the many applicable leader boards that he tops for the calendar year.
He ranks number one for assists (12), Expected Assists (8.8), chances created (103), passes played into the penalty area (329), line-breaking passes in the final third (243) and total through-balls completed (19).
As if his dominance in a creative capacity wasn’t enough, Fernandes is also statistically one of the hardest-working players in the league, ranking third for both high-intensity pressures (1,607) and ball recoveries (217).
6. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
The second half of Salah's 2025 may have been below his expectations, but don't let recency bias stand in the way of appreciating just how dominant he was in the first half of the year.
In May, Liverpool lifted the Premier League title on the back of Salah's dizzying return of 29 goals and 18 assists, and he was rightfully named as the 2024/25 EA Sports Player of the Season as a result.
Watch: EVERY Salah goal and assist from 2024/25
Even with a slow start to the 2025/26 campaign, Salah's supremacy in the year’s earlier months still puts him firmly in second place for total goals and assists across 2025 as a whole, with 24, behind only Haaland.
The Egyptian still tops the rankings for chances created from open play (79) and Expected Assists in open play (6.9) for the full year.
7. Daniel Munoz (Crystal Palace)
Crystal Palace fans will not have been surprised to see their team's performances dip as soon as they lost Daniel Munoz to a knee injury.
The Eagles lost three of their first 14 Premier League matches this season with the marauding wing-back in their team, but have suffered the same number of defeats in just four matches since the Colombian's absence began.
His 11 goal involvements, made up of five goals and six assists, are the most of any defender in 2025.
Munoz is more than just an attacking threat, though – he also ranks fifth among all players for tackles and interceptions combined (133), while Man City's Ruben Dias (16) is the only defender to be involved in more clean sheets (14).
The Colombian's return from injury cannot come soon enough for Oliver Glasner.
8. Bryan Mbeumo (Man Utd)
A highly impressive 20-goal season for Brentford in 2024/25 earned Bryan Mbeumo a big-money move to Man Utd in the summer, and the Cameroonian has slotted in perfectly so far.
He ranks third across the calendar year for total goal involvements, thanks to 16 goals and six assists, and he may have ranked higher if not for the finishing of his team-mates: his 8.6 Expected Assists are the second most in 2025, behind only Fernandes (8.8).
Watch: The best of Mbeumo so far this season
Mbeumo's contribution is greater than just goals and assists, though - he also ranks second among wingers for how many high-intensity pressures he has applied to opposition players (1,407).
Still only 26 years old, Mbeumo is in his fifth season as a Premier League player. By the time he's done, he may well be considered one of the competition's all-time best African players.
9. Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa)
Morgan Rogers' failures to impress on loan with Bournemouth and Blackpool in the EFL Championship meant Man City were happy to let him leave in the summer of 2023, with Middlesbrough willing to take a chance on a player who had been a standout at youth level.
More than two years later, Rogers is now spearheading an unlikely title charge for Aston Villa, on the back of being named PFA Young Player of the Year. Man City are no doubt wondering why they didn’t give him just one more season.
The 23-year-old leads all Premier League players for open-play assists in 2025, with 10, while his 19 goals and assists combined are the sixth-most of any player, and the most of any Englishman.
Back-to-back braces against West Ham and Man Utd this month made him the first Villa player to achieve such a feat in the Premier League since Dion Dublin back in 1998.
Watch: Rogers' two goals against West Ham
Rogers is well on his way to cementing his position as one of the faces of the league.
10. David Raya (Arsenal)
Raya won the Golden Glove in his first season at Arsenal in 2023/24, before sharing the award with Forest's Matz Sels in 2024/25.
With a league-high nine clean sheets to his name this season, he is well on his way to becoming the fourth goalkeeper to win the award in three consecutive seasons, after Pepe Reina, Joe Hart and Ederson.
He does of course top the clean sheet standings for 2025 as a whole too, with 15, and he has firmly established himself as one of Europe's top shot stoppers.
Jordan Pickford deserves a mention here for his chart-topping 8.5 goals prevented for the year based on Expected Goals (xG), but Raya's all-around contribution to the top defence in the league makes him the standout goalkeeper of the year.
11. Gabriel Magalhaes (Arsenal)
Gabriel Magalhaes may well be the most important defender for the best defence in the Premier League, and that's enough to plant him firmly in our list of standout players for 2025.
Arsenal are built to dominate both boxes, and Gabriel encapsulates Mikel Arteta's intention in that regard.
The Brazilian regularly clears all threats to Arsenal's box on the rare occasions that teams make it close enough, before causing mayhem in the opposition penalty area at set plays, irrespective of whether he comes into contact with the ball.
It is no coincidence that Arsenal kept only two clean sheets in the seven Premier League matches after they lost Gabriel to injury in November, compared to seven clean sheets in 11 league games before his absence.
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