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PST Premier League 2024-25 season awards — Top performers, biggest flops, best moments

There’s still an awful lot on the line this Premier League season, but the line between great and poor seasons has long since evaporated and it feels like Week 36 is not too early to consider the standout and flop performers — individual and club — this season.

MORE — Best XI picks | Manager of the Season | USMNT stars reviewed

We know Liverpool are the champions of England for the 20th time, and we’ve long known that Ipswich Town, Leicester City, and Southampton would all call their promotions one-and-done campaigns.

Mohamed Salah has a five-goal lead in the Golden Boot race and a six-helper hold on the assist leaderboard.

A lot’s been settled. So, barring the wildest final two-week finish of any Premier League season, our writers Joe Prince-Wright, Andy Edwards, and Nick Mendola have labeled some award winners.

Read on for our:

Best Summer Transfer
Biggest Player Disappointment
Biggest Team Disappointment
Favorite Moment of the Season
Breakout Player of the Season
Defender of the Season
Goalkeeper of the Season
Player of the Season

PST Premier League 2024-25 season awards

Best Summer Transfer

Joe Prince-Wright: Dean Huijsen -- Bournemouth paid just $17 million to Juventus for the young Spanish center back last summer and his rise has been meteoric. He had to wait for his chance to get into the team but then he never looked back. The 20-year-old is set for a huge move this summer with a relatively low release clause of $65 million. That is great business for Bournemouth and Huijsen is set for big things, both for Spain and whichever club purchases the defender. Special mentions go to Georginio Rutter, Liam Delap, Mateus Fernandes and Sander Berge too.

Andy Edwards: Liam Delap -- Naturally, he’ll be moving on this summer after Ipswich Town head back down to the Premier League, but there was a lot of worse business done than (up to) $26 million for a dozen PL goals, which turned out to be more than one-third of all the Tractor Boys have scored. Delap even managed to score consistently throughout the whole season, failing to bag only in the month of March (and May, so far).

Nick Mendola: Dean Huijsen -- It’s incredible work from Bournemouth. Huijsen just turned 20 last month, and entered the transfer market last summer with all of 614 senior minutes between Juventus and Roma. not just for performance, but for the profit likely coming this summer. He’s been an elite play driver out of the back and is in the 96th percentile in both interceptions and clearances.. The Cherries also brought in Kepa Arrizabalaga and Evanilson in a transfer window to remember.

Biggest Player Disappointment

Joe Prince-Wright: Darwin Nunez -- He usually works so hard but this clearly isn’t going to work for Nunez at Liverpool while Arne Slot is in charge. The Liverpool manager called out Nunez’s effort at times and it seems like the Uruguayan forward has accepted that he’s going to move on this summer. It’s a shame because there is a good player in there and he’s shown it in flashes, but it felt like this was the season Nunez could kick on and become a real star. Instead he’s done the opposite. I also expected plenty more from Jadon Sancho at Chelsea, Jack Grealish at Man City and Rasmus Hojlund at Man United.

Andy Edwards: Eddie Nketiah -- Sure, he has been stuck behind Jean-Philippe Mateta, one of the standout players of the season, but Crystal Palace shelled out $40 million last summer and got just one league goal in return. Injuries were a part of the story as well, but Nketiah has made just three PL starts since November began and will need a massive bounce-back season to reclaim a place in the side and/or rehabilitate his transfer value.

Nick Mendola: Rasmus Hojlund — Follow me here, maybe we should not be surprised? Post-Ferguson era Manchester United has this annoying habit of making neutrals root for their players out of some odd form of sympathy. Neither the then-20-year-old Hojlund nor Atalanta could pass up the move nor the money when United came calling in Summer 2023, but man has the price tag looked more and more like a millstone. And how did he cost that much? He scored 16 goals across all competitions in his first year at Man United, and that figure is down to 10 this season. Given his age that’s not terrible but knowing he cost about $85 million makes it difficult to look at his season without involuntary shrugging and head shaking.

Biggest Team Disappointment

Joe Prince-Wright: The obvious answer is one of Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur. Both have been woeful in the Premier League. Even with injuries and their focus clearly switching to the Europa League, you can’t excuse some of the awful performances they’ve put in. And there are many to choose from. Elsewhere, West Ham United have underachieved massively with the squad they have, while Southampton will rightly go down as one of the worst teams in Premier League history as their recruitment plan was all wrong and they’ve been embarrassed consistently.

Andy Edwards: Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United -- Whichever side loses the Europa League final, but the winner still comes in as runner-up.

Nick Mendola: It says something that this could be any of three giants given Man City’s slip down the table post-Rodri, but it’s either Spurs or Man United. We’ll go with the Red Devils, who rolled out a few starters who would’ve been fringe on any number of their teams over the past 15 years, which also haven’t been great! The off-the-field hasn’t been a ticker-tape parade either.

Favorite Moment of the Season

Joe Prince-Wright: Liverpool beating Tottenham Hotspur 6-3 in a crazy game December, and I was inside the stadium to witness the madness. That game summed up the beauty of the Premier League and the great individual players they we watch week in, week out. It also summed up that whatever happens, Liverpool always had an extra gear to reach whenever they needed it. That is why they are champions.

Andy Edwards: It’s not quite a Premier League moment, but how can you not love to see Newcastle fans celebrating a trophy for the first time in 70 years? Now, if Crystal Palace managed to beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final for their first trophy in club history (119 years), we might have to reconsider.

Nick Mendola: I’ve having trouble putting it into words, so how about a picture? After decades of making me wish I’d have been led down any other Premier League path, the most fun midfield I’ve seen delivered silverware to the Geordies. And — being completely biased —Sandro Tonali is the greatest player in the universe.

Liverpool v Newcastle United - Carabao Cup Final

Breakout Player of the Season

Joe Prince-Wright: Milos Kerkez -- I don’t think I’ve seen him have a bad game. Ever. The quality of his crossing from the left has been sensational and he is so good defensively too. Seems destined to head to one of the big boys this summer and the 21-year-old could become one of the best left backs in the world. If he isn’t already. Also, lovely mullet haircut.

Andy Edwards: Morgan Rogers -- If you say you saw this kind of breakout coming from a player with all of 11 PL appearances heading into the season, good for you but I don’t believe you. 8 goals, 9 assists for the 22-year-old this season (that’s the 2nd-most goals and the most assists for any player under 23). With Aston Villa putting so much focus and energy into their Champions League run, Unai Emery desperately needed someone to step up in a big way, and Rogers did so with a goal or assist in 14 different league games.

Nick Mendola: Ryan Gravenberch — Not sure Matheus Cunha can count here, so it’s down to Amad Diallo and Gravenberch. We’ll take Gravenberch who went from Jurgen Klopp question mark to an indispensable player for Arne Slot on Liverpool’s run to the Premier League title. He made Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate look better, and let Slot toy with his midfield by being the Steady Eddie at the back.

Defender of the Season

Joe Prince-Wright: Virgil van Dijk — This was a tough one, but I think it has to be Virgil van Dijk. He was so calm and assured all season long and like Salah, there was so much focus on his future and whether or not he was going to sign a contract. But Liverpool’s captain just got on with his job. He’s a rare player who makes others around him better and he was almost on autopilot this season. Van Dijk has the perfect mix of speed, quality on the ball, aggressiveness and leadership and he is what every center back in the world is aspiring to be.

Andy Edwards: Virgil van Dijk — One of just two outfield players to play every single minute of the season thus far (he is 10.5 years older than the other one, less than two months from turning 34), not to mention, he also played all but 90 minutes of Liverpool’s Champions League campaign. Almost five years on from tearing his ACL and seemingly losing a step of his once-explosive pace, Van Dijk continues to organize and lead one of the best defenses in the world and should do so for a couple more years yet.

Nick Mendola: Josko Gvardiol — I struggled with this one. I wanted to give it to Antonee Robinson, but felt that Fulham’s rough finish to the season couldn’t help me support it. Virgil van Dijk’s been good, for sure, indispensable to Liverpool’s title run and he technically leads the clean sheet leaderboard even if a defender can’t win the Golden Glove. That led me to William Saliba, but his performances have dipped since Gabriel Magalhaes was lost for the season with injury. So here’s a name out of left ~~back~~ field — Gvardiol has been fantastic in nearly every game since the calendar hit 2025. The 23-year-old has shone despite playing left back instead of his more natural center back, and he’s been nearly imperious since Pep Guardiola moved him inside the back four. There is no part of his game you’d mark as a weakness and he’s only likely to get better.

Goalkeeper of the Season

Joe Prince-Wright: Matz Sels — I think it has to be Sels. He has been so important in Forest’s unlikely season and if you look at the stats, he’s been worked very hard and has so often come up with the goods. He leads the league in goals prevented (3.9) and clean sheets (13) and in big moments he’s produced incredible saves. There was a lot of pressure on him to do that because Forest invite so much pressure and back themselves to win tight games.

Andy Edwards: Matz Sels — As the game continues to evolve, we’re seeing goalkeepers asked to do more and more in possession — playing the ball short, receiving it on the ground in open play, making split-second decisions as if they were an outfield player — and because they are decidedly not outfield players, most of them make a few hilarious mistakes each season. And it’s hard to forget about those moments when it’s time to decide which of them was the best. You know who doesn’t have to worry about that, though? Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels, who has launched the ball 40 yards or more on 69.6 percent of his passing attempts this season. He has also: 1) the 2nd-best plus-minus between xG and goals conceded of ‘keepers with 25 or more appearances (behind Kepa); faced more than 500 shots this season (6th-most in the league, largely by design); and, 3) been ever-present, playing all 3,240 minutes thus far.

Nick Mendola: Kepa Arrizabalaga -- Who knows if his price tag will continue to follow him around, but he was huge in Bournemouth’s season. Saved 3.1 goals above xG and helped martial an forward-thinking back line featuring several very young defenders in Huijsen, Ilya Zabarnyi, and Milos Kerkez. He provided exactly what was needed, maybe more. Chelsea might’ve already sealed a top-five berth if he had this same season back at his parent club, where the goalkeeping was quite average.

Player of the Season

Joe Prince-Wright: Mohamed Salah -- Incredible campaign of assists, goals and being generally relentless in his pursuit of the Premier League trophy. Playing at such a high level at the same time everybody was talking about your contract situation and future was incredible to witness. Amazing levels of concentration, dedication and class. Salah seems like he can keep this going for at least another few years and it’s brilliant to see him staying in the Premier League after re-signing at Anfield.

Andy Edwards: Mohamed Salah -- Best player on the best/title-winning team; most goals; most assists; 46 goals+assists (17 more than anyone else at time of writing); and on and on. By whatever metric you choose, he was the most outstanding, the most dominant, the most imporatnt, the most valuable, the… OK, you get it now.

Nick Mendola: Mohamed Salah -- Don’t let his relatively slow final third of the season detract from his driving the Reds to the title while pacing the league in goals and assists. As we said in the introductory part of this post, he has almost insurmountable leads in both the Golden Boot and Playmaker of the Year awards.

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