The ten best players of the 2023/24 Premier League season so far
More than half of the list is made up of title-chasing Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City players but there is room for those excelling elsewhere too.
10) Heung-min Son
Ange Postecoglou crowned Son “probably the best attacking player” in the Premier League before international duty interrupted a stunning season, but even since his return the South Korean has assisted one stoppage-time winner, scored a couple of goals and laid on two more to inspire a pivotal victory in the Champions League qualification race.
Four players have scored more goals and five can lay claim to more assists, but none have carried as great a transitional burden. Son inherited the captain’s armband from Hugo Lloris and simultaneously assumed the responsibility of Harry Kane to lead a fresh Spurs into a bright future.
His status as the division’s most potent attacking force is up for considerable debate but Son has been officially the best finisher in the Premier League this season.
9) Bukayo Saka
A campaign of milestones, from reaching 200 games and 50 goals for Arsenal to breaking the club record for consecutive Premier League appearances, becoming captain for the first time and making his Champions League debut.
Perhaps the most striking landmark is that Mikel Arteta has even rested Saka a little bit. Not much; he’s missed three matches of a busy and demanding club season which has featured a great many England minutes Arsenal might hope are not significantly increased over the next fortnight. But that in itself marks an improvement and reflects his growing importance to one of the best teams in the world.
A slightly more functional style than some of his peers can disguise how seamlessly Saka has transformed into an elite-level forward any manager would covet. No player across Europe’s top five leagues has completed more tackles in the attacking third and this is already Saka’s most productive season in terms of both goals and assists.
8) Cole Palmer
By his own admission, it was a signing presented to Mauricio Pochettino rather than specifically pursued by him – “I think it was one of the sporting directors and owners who had the ideas to bring him to the squad” – but it is telling just how quickly Chelsea’s exorbitant attack, if not their entire team, has been pulled into Palmer’s orbit.
The easy option would have been to coast into a position vacated by Riyad Mahrez, contribute plenty of goals to the Manchester City cause in return for a handful of trophies and gradually increase his minutes under Pep Guardiola. That is not a regularly trodden path but at least one supremely gifted player has shown it is possible with time, patience and understanding.
Palmer instead bet on himself, holding a group of expensive composite parts together and helping them slowly resemble a unit in his first full senior campaign.
Twelve assists is a wonderful return and two of Palmer’s 16 goals came for his boyhood club in the Community Shield and Super Cup before coming to a Todd Boehly crossroads. A rotational spot in the attack of the best team in the world was his but the supporting cast member was headhunted for a main character role he seems made for.
READ MORE: Is Tim Sherwood the worst pundit in English football? Ask Cole Palmer
7) Phil Foden
The track Palmer could have followed was that of Foden. Coming towards the end of his final months of ‘agreeing to sit on the bench for six years’ with his new contract in 2018, a player deemed by many more than Neil Custis to be wasting his formative days at the Etihad has justified every step taken to refine his game.
“He is the best player in the Premier League right now for the amount of things he does,” Guardiola recently said of his “unbelievable” asset, who this season has entered that same pantheon of frequent game-altering brilliance as Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland.
Things are subject to change with the campaign entering its final straight, but Foden has played the most minutes of any Manchester City player so far. Taking that mantle from Rodri feels fitting.
6) Mo Salah
Between them, Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo have 379 appearances, 129 goals and 50 assists for Liverpool. The elder statesman of a transformed attack, Salah has 337 appearances, 207 goals and 87 assists. He is only 40 Reds goals behind the combined career efforts of the rest of their 32-man squad and that gap is somehow not really closing in any meaningful way.
Only three players have been part of the current Liverpool first-team fabric for longer but while Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Trent Alexander-Arnold have had varying degrees of pains both growing and otherwise during their times at Anfield, Salah’s consistency in terms of quality and availability remains close to faultless. His post-AFCON injury struggles were an almost unique crack in his armour of brilliance and resilience.
It should have been a transitional season with Liverpool starting to build back up to the level from which they – but certainly not Salah individually – fell last campaign. Their Egyptian king has played the biggest part in elevating them to previous trophy-chasing heights. How understandably desperate they will be to prevent him following Jurgen Klopp.
5) Ollie Watkins
Salah is one of only four players with more combined goals and assists in all competitions across Europe’s top five leagues than Watkins in 2023/24. Keeping company with the Liverpool forward, Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane is an incredible achievement.
There have been domestic and European hat-tricks, new records set and fresh trails blazed. Watkins has played for seven different managers at senior level and while he has made more appearances under Dean Smith, Thomas Frank and Paul Tisdale, he has scored his most career goals for Unai Emery. Some players need the right coach to come along and unlock their best version and this feels like an ideal fit which will only get better.
4) Martin Odegaard
“Mainly what we are doing right now as a club is special, and I want to be a part of that,” explained Odegaard when discussing his reasons for signing a new Arsenal contract. It was suitably deferential from someone who often surrenders headline space to his teammates, considering perhaps no one player has had a bigger role in the club’s rise.
Odegaard is not the shouty captain or demonstrably physical midfield presence Arsenal’s critics have head-shakingly lamented the lack thereof for about two decades, but leading by a slightly more quiet example is no weakness. He embodies the tough artistry of Arteta better than anyone.
3) Rodri
Sometimes statistics do tell if not the whole story, then certainly the CliffsNotes. And Rodri’s 37 appearances this season have not featured a single defeat during a season in which Manchester City have lost four times, while no player with actual meaningful Premier League minutes has a better PPG than the Spaniard (2.52).
He remains perhaps the most important player in this title race. Manchester City have shown they can cope without their peerless goalscorer and unrivalled creator; Guardiola is yet to find any feasible solution for when Rodri is missing.
READ MORE: The Rodri Conundrum and four more reasons why Man City won’t win the Premier League
2) Virgil van Dijk
With Salah helping guide Liverpool’s attacking evolution, Van Dijk has been the designated driver of their defensive development. The 47 goals the Reds conceded in the Premier League last season was a new high/low for a full Klopp season but even with every other piece of the club’s puzzle at the back absent for at least some of the season, Van Dijk has help Liverpool together to give them one of the best records in the league.
Four different central partners and an ever-changing cast of full-backs has somehow brought out the best in a player most assumed was, if not over the hill, then absolutely past his peak.
As he said himself, “they thought I was finished”. Far from it for a man whose time as captain is only just getting started.
1) Declan Rice
There would be no title race – and precious little point in anyone across Europe actually trying either – if Arsenal had not played the transfer game perfectly this summer. Rice would have made Manchester City untouchable but he has instead helped the Gunners establish parity at the top.
A career-best season in terms of goals and assists is one thing but Rice has taken the upgrade from Conference League to Champions League, from challenging the elite to becoming part of it, in his enviable stride.
Those who bear the weight of such a considerable price tag have been crushed by it before but Rice has immediately and seamlessly embraced it.
