Highlights
- The Premier League Player of the Month award is given to the most impressive player in the league that calendar month.
- Some incredible players such as Didier Drogba and Patrick Vieira failed to win a single Player of the Month award.
- There have been some really surprising winners over the years.
Many of the Premier League greats have managed to win the league’s Player of the Month award at some point during their careers. Two of the greatest strikers the division has ever seen in Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane both won it a record seven times each. Steven Gerrard and Cristiano Ronaldo are close behind with six wins. Then you have the likes of Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney (five times each), followed by Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes and Alan Shearer who all went the individual accolade four times.
You get the point. The best of the best tend to get their hands on one of these things every once in a while. Some great players never managed to land their hands in the award, though, including Didier Drogba, Patrick Vieira and Yaya Toure. And then there are some rather unexpected names who have managed to win at least one Premier League Player of the Month award since the accolade was introduced back in 1994. Players who you would never associate with being standout performers in the Premier League. Here are 16 of the most surprising winners ever.
1 Alex Manninger - March 1998
David Seaman was Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper in the 1990s and early 2000s but Alex Manninger stepped in when the England international was injured during the 1997/98 campaign and kept six consecutive clean sheets - a joint club record. It's not just the fact the team's record was matched, but it's who did it.
No one expected the backup to really feature at all, so having him come into the side and perform as well as he did, it was impossible not to take notice and the Premier League awarded him with the Player of the Month award in March 1998. His form didn't do enough to usurp Seaman, though, and the Englishman reclaimed his spot in the lineup once he returned.
2 Marcus Bent - January 2002
Ipswich Town were relegated at the end of the 2001/02 campaign but Marcus Bent still managed to pick up the Player of the Month award in January - sandwiched in between Ruud van Nistelrooy, who won the award in December 2001 and February 2002 - after scoring five goals in four games for the Tractor Boys.
Signed from Blackburn Rovers, the striker actually only joined Ipswich a couple of months earlier and it's safe to say, he hit the ground running. Winning the Player of the Month award almost immediately was an incredible start, but his goals couldn't keep the side in the Premier League. He spent a further year with the Tractor Boys in the Championship before returning to the Premier League via a loan spell at Leicester City and then a permanent move to Everton. He never won the Player of the Month award again, though.
3 Edu - February 2004
The 2003/04 season saw Arsenal do the miraculous and go unbeaten throughout an entire Premier League season. The Invincibles is an achievement that no one has replicated since and the squad was filled with incredible players. Thierry Henry won a couple of Player of the Month awards, Dennis Bergkamp won one and, quite surprisingly, the only other Gunner to receive the award that year was Edu.
In February 2004, the Brazilian midfielder shared the Premier League Player of the Month award with teammate Bergkamp, becoming the third duo to do so. Edu wasn't bad by any means, but considering the level of talent at the club, it's quite wild that he's one of the few who was acknowledged for their impressive form that year. The fact that Vieira never won the award during his time at Arsenal makes Edu’s prize all the more surprising looking back at it now.
4 Anton Ferdinand - January 2006
Vincent Kompany never managed to win a Premier League Player of the Month award, but Anton Ferdinand did. How mad is that? He actually has the same amount of Player of the Month awards as his older brother Rio, which is also quite baffling. For a while, though, it did look like Anton was destined for great things and, in January 2006, he picked up the accolade while playing for West Ham United.
It was also reported at the time that Anton, who was 20 at the time, was on the radar of Barcelona(!). Things certainly didn't play out quite like it might have seemed, though. He spent a further two years at the Hammers, before joining Sunderland in 2008. After spells with the Black Cats, Queens Parker Rangers, Reading amongst others, he retired in 2019 and never came close to winning the award again.
5 Kevin Nolan - February 2006
Just one month after Anton won the award, there was another surprise victor in the form of Kevin Nolan. The Bolton Wanderers man was a decent goalscoring midfielder at his peak but it’s still a little surprising to see his name followed by Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Ryan Giggs.
The midfielder helped Bolton secure an eighth-place finish in the Premier League table in 2006, and he had a very solid career in the top flight with Newcastle United and West Ham too. All in all, Nolan spent 14 seasons in the Premier League, but never came close to winning the Player of the Month award again. He did eventually win the Championship Player of the Year award, though, so that's something.
6 Ashley Young - April 2008, Sept 2008, Dec 2008
Look at the Player of the Month award winners for 2008, and you could be forgiven for thinking Ashley Young must have been playing like Lionel Messi that year. The veteran winger, who took a lot of stick during his time at Manchester United, has won the Player of the Month award more times than the likes of Giggs, Robbie Fowler, Roy Keane and Eden Hazard thanks to his hat-trick while playing for Aston Villa.
It's not the fact Young won the award that's really that surprising. He was a solid player, especially during his time at Villa when he would tear defences apart from the wing. It's that he won three in such close succession that is quite wild. Those Martin O'Neill Villa teams were something else though, weren't they?
7 Johan Elmander - November 2010
When all was said and done, Johan Elmander's time at Bolton was considered a bit of a disappointment. He never quite reached the levels that were expected of him. He scored 18 goals in 92 Premier League appearances with Bolton but still managed to win a Player of the Month award in 2010 after netting three goals for the Trotters.
The month was a sign of things to come as he had his best season in England that year. The forward spent three years with the Trotters, leaving less than 12 months after winning his sole Player of the Month award. He is most remembered for scoring one of the most underrated goals in Premier League history, but the fact he was named the best player in the Premier League over the course of a November 2010 is quite absurd.
8 Peter Odemwingie - Sept 2010, April 2011, Feb 2012
If Ashley Young winning the Premier League Player of the Month award three times was surprising, then Peter Odemwingie doing it is simply mind-blowing. Yes, the former West Bromwich Albion man really did win the Premier League Player of the Month award three times during his spell with the Baggies. Now that’s impressive.
The likes of Luis Suarez and Fernando Torres only managed to win it twice during their spells in England. He won it more than some of the best players in league history which is crazy. He's known more these days for his failed attempt at securing a transfer to QPR, driving to their ground on deadline day and being caught by Sky Sports. The move never materialised, and he had to return to West Brom afterwards.
9 Nikica Jelavic - April 2012
Nikica Jelavic wasn’t exactly prolific at Everton. The Croatian bagged 16 goals in 59 league games for the Toffees, including six in three matches in April 2012, which was enough to win him the Player of the Month award. Winning the award mere months after joining the club, it looked as though he was about to be a massive signing for Everton.
That was about as good as things got for the striker at Goodison Park and less than two years after winning the award, he left the Toffees for Hull City. He spent three years in the top flight with the Tigers and West Ham, but never came close to replicating that impressive form that earned him the trophy.
10 Steven Fletcher - September 2012
Steven Fletcher wasn’t a bad striker in the Premier League. He was the definition of a solid, midtable forward, but it was still unexpected to see his name among various legends to win the Player of the Month award. The Scotland international received the accolade after scoring five goals in four September matches.
After Wolverhampton Wanderers were relegated in 2012, he joined Sunderland for £12m, and it was just a month after his move that he won the award. He hit the ground running at the Stadium of Light and looked like a very smart bit of business. While he first campaign with the club was solid, his form fell off after that and he was never the same type of goalscorer that he looked like when he won the award.
11 Adam Le Fondre - January 2013
Adam Le Fondre’s Player of the Month award for January 2013 was made all the more remarkable by the fact he didn’t even start a game for Reading that month. Despite playing just 85 minutes, the striker scored five goals including braces against Chelsea and Newcastle United and, for a very short period, he was one of the most in-form strikers in the world.
He'd taken to the Premier League like a duck to water, but his 12 goals that season weren't enough to keep the Royals up. He never played in the top flight again and currently plays for Hibernian in the Scottish Premiership. One Premier League season and one Premier League Player of the Month award is a pretty decent record, though. You can't say he didn't make the most of his chance.
12 Tim Krul - November 2013
Goalkeepers who never won a Premier League Player of the Month award: Peter Schmeichel and David de Gea. Goalkeepers who won a Premier League Player of the Month award: Tim Krul. Do we need to say anymore? The Dutchman spent several years at Newcastle and was a serviceable figure in between the sticks for them during that time, but no one really saw a Player of the Month award on the horizon for him.
Admittedly, though, he had a pretty fantastic November as his side won all four of their league games throughout the month. The particular highlight was their win over Tottenham Hotspur which saw Krul make 14 saves and keep the clean sheet. Not bad at all. A decade later, and Krul is once again a Premier League goalkeeper. Considering he's firmly behind Thomas Kaminski in the pecking order at Luton Town, though, we can't imagine he'll be winning another Player of the Month award anytime soon.
13 Connor Wickham - April 2014
Connor Wickham has failed to fulfil his potential. There's no denying that, but he did win a Premier League Player of the Month award in April 2014 after scoring five goals in four games for Sunderland. It was a very brief purple patch and was far from the normal form we'd become accustomed to seeing from him.
In fact, those five strikes were his only goals throughout the entire Premier League campaign. He soon moved on from the Blackcats and, after a brief spell at Sheffield Wednesday, found himself at Crystal Palace. He never looked like a goal threat at Selhurst Park, though, and never even sniffed a Premier League Player of the Month award again.
14 Diafra Sakho - October 2014
It was a West Ham double in October 2014 as Sam Allardyce and Diafra Sakho won the Manager and Player of the Month awards, respectively. The Hammers won all three of their games that month, with Sakho netting in every fixture. The win came just a couple of months after his move to England, and his debut campaign was a very impressive one.
Everything he did afterwards? Not so much. After scoring 10 league goals in his first Premier League season, Sakho only managed to score another eight over the next three years combined, and it's safe to say he was never considered for the award again. The forward retired earlier this year after a year at Nancy in the lower leagues of France.
15 Fraser Forster - February 2016
Fraser Forster became only the sixth Southampton player to win a Premier League Player of the Month award in February 2016 - and one of only a handful of goalkeepers - after keeping clean sheets against Arsenal, West Ham and Swansea City.
His time at the Saints was a little hit-and-miss. There were times when he looked like a true world beater, and others when he lost his place in the lineup to Alex McCarthy. Still, there's no taking his award away from him.
16 Michail Antonio - July 2020, August 2021
Over the years, Michail Antonio has become known for the insane purple-patch periods that he's gone through at West Ham. There have been periods when he looked like one of the very best players in the entire Premier League, but those moments are surrounded by struggles.
Still, he's managed to win the Player of the Month award on two separate occasions. First doing so in July 2020 during the COVID-19 campaign, he did it again just over a year later to kick off the 2021/22 season. He's not reliable enough to lead the lines for the Hammers alone, though, and this season, with just two league goals so far, he doesn't seem likely to win the award again. That being said, with his tendency to find these purple patches, we wouldn't be too surprised.
17 Kelechi Iheanacho - March 2021
At one time, it looked like Kelechi Iheanacho was destined to become one of the most devastating forwards in England. He broke through at Manchester City, but found opportunities hard to come by among such a stacked squad. He eventually joined Leicester City, and it seemed to be a real a coup. The 2020/21 season is the only real campaign he had in the top flight, though, where he was a consistent goal-scoring threat.
It was during that campaign he won the Player of the Month award, during March when he scored five goals in three appearances, but outside of that little run, he's never really made much of an impact and couldn't be relied upon to lead the lines for the Foxes. He's having a better time of things now that he's in the Championship, but with Leicester almost a dead certainty to return to the top flight next year, he'll have to step things up if he wants to win one of these again.
18 Jesse Lingard - April 2021
After falling out of favour at Manchester United, Jesse Lingard was sent on loan to West Ham in the second half of the 2020/21 season, but no one could have predicted just how successful the move would prove to be. Joining in January, he was fantastic for the Hammers and won the Player of the Month award in April 2021 after scoring four goals in four games.
What makes his win so surprising is the fact his career looked dead and buried before he joined the team and his career after leaving them has been a bit of a disaster too. There was just a very small period where he looked like one of the best attacking midfielders in England and it was enough to win the award.