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Awards season is still a few weeks away and, yet, one thing is certain; Aaron Wan-Bissaka will not be retaining his West Ham United Player of the Season award.
This is no slight on ‘AWB’.
It’s just that, in what has been an up-and-down campaign for the 2024/25 Hammer of the Year, there are plenty of players in Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad who have done a lot more to claim the prize for themselves.
At Hammers News, we asked our TalkingPoint users to name their frontrunner for the 2025/26 gong.
AWB is our reigning Hammer of the Year! ⚒️ 🏆
But who is your favourite to win the award in 2026?
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
That West Ham United captain Jarrod Bowen is a very distant fourth in the voting – despite topping both the goals and the assists charts – is testament to a fine debut season from Mateus Fernandes, plus the turnarounds enjoyed by Crysencio Summerville and Konstantinos Mavropanos.
Mateus Fernandes West Ham United’s Player of the Year-in waiting
Photo by Tiego Grenho/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
At the time of writing, with over 700 picks counted, Bowen has picked up only six per cent of the vote.
That places him behind Mavropanos [16 per cent] in third, although recency bias may have played a part in the Greek’s podium finish.
Mavropanos was ‘exceptional’ in West Ham’s most recent outing, stellar displays against both Aston Villa and Manchester City meaning he is probably playing the best football of his career right now.
Making up the top two, meanwhile, is Summerville and Fernandes.
Tell us West Ham’s signing of the season… 💰
Is it Diouf, Fernandes, Disasi, Hermansen or someone else? 🤔
Photo by Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images
You voted for the latter ahead of the former, Fernandes picking up 40 per cent of the vote compared to Summerville’s 30 per cent. There is still plenty of time for the Dutchman to overhaul the Portuguese playmaker, though.
West Ham hope to have Summerville back for the trip to his old employers, Leeds United, in the FA Cup quarter-finals on April 5th. There is still a Carlos Tevez role for him to fulfil in the final stretch of a daunting season; a new protagonist in 2026’s ‘Great Escape’ reboot.
Fernandes, though, is not only West Ham’s driving force under Nuno, he is also arguably their best signing in years and their most complete midfielder since Declan Rice.
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