Ian Darke’s Premier League stars of the season: Salah, Isak, more

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah will surely walk away with both glittering prizes for being the top player in the 2024-25 Premier League season. But are there are other serious contenders?

You can expect Salah, currently top of the charts with 27 league goals and 18 assists through 32 games, to collect the PFA Player of the Year award (as voted for by his fellow professionals), and also the historic Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year trophy (awarded by the nation’s football writers and first won by the legendary Stanley Matthews in 1948.)

Perhaps things can change in the last month of the season when the trophies are handed out, but in truth, it’s been an entertaining, up-and-down season in which only a chosen few have consistently sprinkled stardust on proceedings. Chelsea forward Cole Palmer, for instance, started the season sensationally, but suffered a dip in form after Christmas.

So here goes with my short list of the season’s star players:

1. Mohamed Salah, FW, Liverpool

Quicksilver reactions and scoring instincts have been Salah’s hallmark and he has often produced match-winning or -saving moments just when his team needed him to. He has 32 goals and 23 assists in all competitions (46 games), and now that his contract has been extended another two years, the mood at Anfield is buoyant to say the least. The Egypt international turns 33 in the summer, but seems to still be in mint condition. It’ll be a treat for us to see what he can do next year and beyond.

2. Alexander Isak, FW, Newcastle United

Balletic and deadly, the 24-goal Sweden international has been almost unstoppable at times and fittingly scored a superb goal at Wembley as Newcastle lifted their first domestic trophy in 70 years when they won the Carabao Cup against Liverpool. His transfer cost £63 million from Real Sociedad in 2022 and would be worth at least double that now. Isak would be a target for most top European clubs if he became available, which is why it’s important for Newcastle to offer him Champions League football next season.

3. Nikola Milenkovic, DF, Nottingham Forest

His transfer from Fiorentina only cost around £12m in the summer of 2024, but he has proven to be a key component in the Forest success story. He and young Brazil international Murillo have been the rocks on which opposition attacks founder, sparking the swift counterattacks which have helped to lift the unsung outsiders into a dizzy third place in the table. Others like prolific striker Chris Wood and playmaker Morgan Gibbs-White could easily have made this list, but Milenkovic has been monumental.

4. Morgan Rogers, MF, Aston Villa

Once a part of Manchester City’s academy, but unable to break into the first team, Rogers has blossomed into a dynamic attacking midfield player who is never happier than when running dangerously at the heart of anxious defenses. One of the great bargains of recent years, his transfer cost an initial £8m from Middlesbrough at the end of the 2024 winter window and he has delivered 14 goals and 10 assists in 46 games (all competitions) as Villa have stormed into the last eight of the Champions League and reached the FA Cup semifinals. He is very much part of the England scene as well now.

5. Milos Kerkez, DF, Bournemouth

Kerkez’s raids from left-back have been a trademark of Bournemouth’s fine season. The Cherries signed him from AZ Alkmaar in 2023, when Richard Hughes was doing the recruiting, and Hughes is now at Liverpool, so there would be no surprise if the excellent Hungary international turned up at Anfield next season in a £45m deal.

6. Virgil van Dijk, DF, Liverpool

He had a rare off-day in the recent defeat at Fulham, but the Liverpool captain has been the best defender in the Premier League for a few years now and that has not changed at age of 33. He looks in cruise control on the field and is a fine ambassador off it. Liverpool have never invested £75m better than when they brought in the Netherlands international from Southampton in January 2018.

7. Carlos Baleba, MF, Brighton

The highly impressive 21-year-old Cameroon international is the latest midfield powerhouse to emerge at Brighton and rarely misses a game. Like Alexis Mac Allister, Moisés Caicedo and Yves Bissouma before him, his transfer will represent a sizable profit when he eventually leaves as he arrived from Lille for just £23.2m in 2023. He could be a summer target for some heavy hitters higher up the league table.

8. Myles Lewis-Skelly, DF/MF, Arsenal

Nobody outside Arsenal had heard of him a few months ago and those who had saw him play mostly as a central midfielder. Now the 18-year-old academy graduate is a fixture for his club and looks like he might be England’s left-back for the next decade. Like midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, who has also had a breakout season for the Gunners, Lewis-Skelly has been a revelation and could end up following in the footsteps of Ashley Cole.

9. Ryan Gravenberch, MF, Liverpool

On the fringes of the Liverpool team under Jurgen Klopp last season, the Netherlands international had been an attacking midfielder when he moved from Ajax for £34.3m in 2023, but has made himself indispensable in the deep-lying No. 6 role at Anfield under Arne Slot. He has been the complete package this campaign, breaking up opposition attacks and finding progressive passes to get his side moving forward.

10. Dan Burn, DF, Newcastle

One of the best stories of the season, Burn was stacking supermarket shelves and playing non-league football for Darlington in 2011, but he battled his way up the pyramid and moved to Fulham, then Wigan and Brighton, before landing at Newcastle for £13m in 2022. The 6-foot-7 defender was usually positioned at centre-back but converted to left-back and scored a classic header in Newcastle’s Carabao Cup triumph last month (to end the club’s 70-year wait for a domestic trophy) and won his first England cap a few days later. He gets in this top 10 on that basis alone.

Also in consideration:

Bruno Fernandes (MF, Man United)
Marco Asensio (MF, Aston Villa, on loan from Real Madrid)
Youri Tielemans (MF, Aston Villa)
Chris Wood (FW, Nottingham Forest)
Morgan Gibbs-White (MF, Nottingham Forest)
Matz Sels (GK, Nottingham Forest)
Ola Aina (DF, Nottingham Forest)
Moises Caicedo (MF, Chelsea)
Cole Palmer (FW, Chelsea)
Liam Delap (FW, Ipswich)
Jean-Philippe Mateta (FW, Crystal Palace)
Antonee Robinson (DF, Fulham)
Bruno Guimarães (MF, Newcastle United)
Jordan Pickford (GK, Everton)
Bryan Mbeumo (FW, Brentford)
Mikkel Damsgaard (MF, Brentford)
Christian Norgaard (MF, Brentford)