Declan Rice Wins Player of the Season Again as Arsenal's Leader
For the second year running, the supporters have made it plain: this Arsenal side belongs to Declan Rice.
The midfielder has retained the club’s men’s Player of the Season award for 2025/26, taking 44% of the vote after a campaign that dragged the Premier League trophy back to north London for the first time in 22 years and carried Arsenal to only the second Champions League final in their history.
David Raya finished second in the poll, Gabriel third. Both were outstanding. Neither could touch Rice.
Joining an elite Arsenal club
Back-to-back Player of the Season awards at Arsenal are rare air. Rice becomes only the sixth player to achieve it, stepping into a lineage that runs through Liam Brady, Ian Wright and Thierry Henry, and into the modern era with Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard.
Those names define eras. Rice is beginning to define his.
He arrived in 2023/24 and immediately finished runner-up in the voting. Since then, he has owned the award, taking it in consecutive seasons while Arsenal have transformed from hopeful challengers into champions.
The engine and the metronome
“Heartbeat of the midfield” can sound like a cliché. Rice has turned it into a job description.
He has patrolled in front of the back four, shielding, snapping into duels, resetting attacks. He has stepped higher to play behind the frontline, dictating the tempo and driving Arsenal into the final third. Wherever Mikel Arteta has placed him, the standard has not dropped.
The numbers tell the story of a player who has dominated every phase of the pitch.
Rice created more chances than any other Arsenal player this season – 96 in all competitions. He won possession back more often than anyone else in the squad, 239 times. He made more tackles than any of his teammates, 91 in total. When Arsenal needed control, he supplied it. When they needed aggression, he delivered that too.
And he never stopped. No outfield player logged more minutes: 4,456 across 55 appearances. It means that in each of his three seasons as a Gunner, Rice has been selected for more than a half-century of matches. Availability as a superpower, wrapped around elite consistency.
End product to match the graft
Rice’s game has always had steel. This season, the edge came with a sharper attacking blade.
From set pieces he became a serious weapon, his delivery and presence a key part of Arsenal’s title push. Across all competitions he finished with nine assists and five goals, numbers that matter even more when you consider when some of them arrived.
His brace in the January win over Bournemouth came at a moment when the title race could have wobbled. Instead, Rice seized it, driving Arsenal through a potentially awkward afternoon and keeping their momentum intact. Performances like that don’t just win games; they shape seasons.
Recognition beyond north London
The club award is only part of the story. Rice’s influence has been noticed far beyond the Emirates.
He earned a place in the Champions League Team of the Season after anchoring Arsenal’s run to the final, a European campaign that underlined his ability to dominate against the continent’s best midfields. He was also nominated for both the Premier League Player of the Season and the PFA Player of the Season, a nod from his peers and the wider game to the level he has reached.
And the year is not done.
Rice is currently with England at the 2026 World Cup, carrying his club form onto the biggest stage of all. More honours could follow in the coming weeks. The question for Arsenal and for his country is the same: just how far can their midfield general take them from here?
