Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Arsenal’s Mariona Caldentey have won the 2025 awards for the Professional Footballers’ Association players’ player of the year.
Salah becomes the first player to collect the prestigious men’s award three times. It would have been a shock had the Egypt forward not triumphed on Tuesday night at the ceremony in Manchester, given he scored 29 Premier League goals and created a further 18 as Liverpool won the title last season, the 33-year-old enjoying one of his very best campaigns of an already gilded career.
Caldentey also shone in her first season as an Arsenal player, with the Spain forward helping the club to end an 18-year wait for European glory by beating her former team Barcelona in the Champions League final in Lisbon.
Along the way, Caldentey scored 19 times in all competitions, including seven Champions League goals. She becomes the third Arsenal player to receive the PFA women’s award, following in the footsteps of Kim Little in 2013 and Vivianne Miedema in 2019.
Caldentey spent July this year in Switzerland, starring for Spain at Euro 2025. She scored the opening goal in the final against England in Basel before ending up with a runners-up medal after the Lionesses prevailed on penalties.
Caldentey’s new Arsenal teammate Olivia Smith is the women’s young player of the year, with the equivalent men’s award going to Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers. Smith, a 21-year-old Canada forward, became the most expensive signing in women’s football history when she arrived in north London from Liverpool for £1m last month. Smith scored seven goals in 20 appearances last season and collected a series of player-of-the-year awards on Merseyside.
Rogers turned 23 last month and is already a senior England international after scoring 14 goals in 54 appearances in all competitions for Villa last season.
James Trafford has become the first goalkeeper to win the Championship player of the year award after keeping 29 clean sheets and conceding only 16 league goals as Burnley were promoted from the second tier. No player has registered more clean sheets or conceded fewer goals during a season in the Football League’s history and it is no surprise that Trafford’s excellence prompted his recent return to Manchester City.
Overall, though, it was very much a night for strikers, with Richard Kone collecting the League One honour for the attacking performances for Wycombe that led to him moving to Queens Park Rangers.
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Bromley’s prolific forward Michael Cheek received the League Two prize, while there were special merit awards for the former England manager Sir Gareth Southgate and the USA head coach, Emma Hayes.