Most Improved Player? Sixth Man of the Year? If the Premier League did NBA-style awards...

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While the Premier League’s Player of the Season and the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards are very similar, there are plenty of categories unique to the world’s most famous basketball league. Here, just for fun, we give you our calls for the 2025-26 Premier League’s Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, Sixth Man of the Year and Clutch Player of the Year. Cherki has become one of the most exciting, if not the most thrilling, players in the league since joining Manchester City from French club Lyon for an initial €36.5million (£30.9m, $41.7m at the time) last June. The stats say four goals and 10 assists in 28 Premier League appearances, but he’s much more than his numbers. City manager Pep Guardiola called the 22-year-old France international a free soul earlier this month. Whether it’s corner fakes or ball-juggling, he plays in the biggest domestic football league on the planet like he’s having a kickabout down the park with his friends. During must-win games for City’s title challenge in recent weeks, he assisted twice in a 3-0 defeat of Chelsea and scored the opening goal, dancing through the Premier League’s best defence, in a 2-1 victory over Arsenal. All three shortlisted players in this category are a testament to the talent France continues to produce. Arsenal have the Premier League’s most clean sheets (16) and the fewest goals conceded (26) this season, and Gabriel has been at the heart of it in a centre-back partnership with Saliba. Strikers struggle to get past him. Gabriel has won 70.8 per cent of his ground duels, which puts him in the top three in the league, and he often has to challenge attackers in riskier, higher areas of the pitch due to Arsenal’s sustained possession in the opposition half, as seen in the graphic below. The 28-year-old Brazil international is effective in both boxes, helping to make Arsenal potent from set pieces. Among his three goals and four assists in the Premier League this season is an added-time winner away to Newcastle United in September. Guardiola has developed 21-year-old O’Reilly into a full-back who is confident in possession, at inverting and posing a box-crashing threat. He scored both goals in City’s Carabao Cup final win against Arsenal in March, and his headed finish in the league defeat of Chelsea three weeks later was from the same playbook. In Wednesday’s 1-0 victory at Burnley, he started as a defensive midfielder and, as the graphic below shows, he was involved with all phases of play. O’Reilly made just nine appearances, six of which were starts, in the Premier League last season, scoring twice. This time, he’s played 31 of their 33 league games so far, starting 26 of those, and his attacking production has ramped up to five goals and three assists. The academy graduate’s performances have kept €37million summer signing Rayan Ait-Nouri out of the team, and could see him starting at left-back for England at the looming World Cup. With basketball teams allowed five players on court at any one time, this is an honour for the best performer in the league who isn’t a regular starter. Across four league games in February, Sesko scored off the bench against Fulham, West Ham United and Everton to earn Manchester United six points. Has there been a greater month for a supersub? His goal in a 3-2 win over Fulham and equaliser in a 1-1 draw with West Ham both came in stoppage time. The Slovenian striker has netted four times as a substitute in total, the most in the Premier League this season. In his first Premier League debut year since joining from RB Leipzig in August, the flashes this 22-year-old has shown as a replacement have been some of his greatest moments of promise so far in a United shirt. Sesko has appeared as a substitute in 13 of his 28 league appearances for the club, and has nine goals in total with one assist. Thiago has been so clinical for Brentford that he’s chasing Haaland for the Golden Boot (he has 21 Premier League goals to the Manchester City striker’s 24) and is in contention to start for Brazil at the World Cup, after receiving his first international call-up in March. Seven of the 21 have been penalties and he has only missed one of his eight attempts in those situations — against Brighton & Hove Albion in November when his second spot kick of a 2-1 defeat was saved by Bart Verbruggen in stoppage time. His overperformance of his expected xG of 19.1 and goal conversion rate of 28 per cent, higher than that of Haaland, shows he is a ruthless finisher. After a knee meniscus injury in pre-season following a summer transfer from Club Brugge of Belgium, Thiago made just eight appearances last season, with one start. He had big shoes to fill after the sales of both Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, who scored 20 and 19 times respectively in 2024-25, but he’s had a breakout year, scoring a record number of goals for both a Brentford player and a Brazil international in the Premier League. He has been crucial to the west London club’s attempts to qualify for Europe for the first time in their history, with a third of his 21 successful finishes being match-winners. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms