How are the Premier League player and manager of the month winners decided?

Publish date: 2024-07-05

Manchester United and England defender Harry Maguire has been named as the Premier League’s player of the month for November.

Maguire, 30, was a mainstay of the club’s defence in a month they won all three of their Premier League matches without conceding a single goal.

The award marks a turnaround in the former Manchester United captain’s fortunes, with the defender once again a regular in the club’s starting XI.

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Maguire has now played the full 90 minutes in each of the club’s past eight league matches.

The England international becomes the third United defender to win the award — after Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand — and the 15th defender to win the award in Premier League history.

So, how do the Premier League’s monthly awards work and who decides the winners?

How is the player of the month winner decided?

The Premier League — and the award’s sponsor, EA Sports — encourage fans to get involved with the voting.

But any award solely voted for by supporters comes with a couple of glaring issues: bias and the size of fanbases.

Therefore, while the opinion of fans is taken into consideration, it only accounts for 10 per cent of the overall decision.

The other 90 per cent is determined by a panel of experts — made up journalists, former referees and Premier League legends — as well as the captains of each top-flight club.

Which players have won the award the most?

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of players who have been the recipient of the award more than once.

Although, there aren’t any who have won it more than Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane, with both strikers getting their hands on it on seven separate occasions.

Those two strikers are closely followed by six-time winners Steven Gerrard and Cristiano Ronaldo. Then come former Manchester United pair Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie and, most recently, Salah.

The Egyptian is the only player to have won it in three consecutive months while Bruno Fernandes became the first player with four wins in a calendar year in 2020.

As a club, Manchester United have the most Player of the Months wins with 45. Although, after Bukayo Saka was handed the award back in March, Arsenal have the most individual winners with 22.

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The players to have won the award three times or more are as follows:

Which players have won the award this season?

How is the manager of the month winner decided?

A similar process is used for the Manager of the Month award.

The fan vote is the same as, like for the player award, it is worth 10 per cent of the decision. However, the captains of each club do not have a say.

That means the other 90 per cent is determined by the panel who are also involved in the decisions for Player of the Month and Goal of the Month.

Which managers have won the award the most?

No prizes for guessing this one.

Sir Alex Ferguson is way out on his own in front for the record. During his time at Manchester United, he was awarded the Manager of the Month award 27 times.

Arsene Wenger (15), Pep Guardiola (11), David Moyes (10) and Jurgen Klopp (9) make up the top five.

Harry Redknapp is the only manager to have won the award during five separate managerial spells; he won it three times with Portsmouth across two different spells, another three times with Tottenham and once each at West Ham and Southampton.

Guardiola, in 2017, is the only manager to have won the award in four consecutive months while Klopp is the only manager to have won it five times in one season, during Liverpool’s triumphant 2019-20 campaign.

These are the managers that have won the award on five or more occasions:

Which managers have won the award this season?

(Photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

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