football.london has discovered how their week-by-week player ratings reveal the Arsenal performances across their Premier League title-winning season
15:32, 01 Jun 2026
Declan Rice was the standout performer across the Premier League season for Arsenal as they won the title
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Declan Rice was the standout performer across the Premier League season for Arsenal as they won the title(Image: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Premier League champions Arsenal achieved their dream goal courtesy of a squad reinforced by a summer transfer spend which broke club records. Mikel Arteta was granted access to significant depth, which helped them during critical periods where key players were absent.
Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Magalhaes, Riccardo Calafiori, Mikel Merino, Ben White and Max Dowman all missed considerable periods with injury, while others had other shorter absences too. But the performances of the collective resulted in ending the 22-year wait for glory.
In every match of this league season, football.london has given player ratings. For context, player ratings vary from person to person, and how one judges a player’s day will be different to another.
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But football.london's chief Arsenal correspondent Tom Canton thought it would be interesting to see what the scores would be if we took the average of each across an entire league season. For context, I tend to be quite harsh at the top end but more generous at the lower end.
Players are scored out of 10 with no half marks. It makes scoring more rigid and forces players to be scored down depending on the context of the other better performers.
Declan Rice (7.3) is the highest scorer, but while based on a broader view he’d easily get a 9/10, his average across the season, based on every display, is much lower because of plenty of decent performances which just were not outstanding individually, despite being the most outstanding player for certain.
David Raya (6.6) is another great example too, where 6s and 7s were common against teams who failed to register much of a threat on the Spaniard’s goal, but no doubt he has been critical to the league victory and would be in my personal top 3 most important players of the season.
If a player didn’t feature, or came on very late in the game they didn’t get a score and therefore did not contribute to their average for the season. Equally, taking an average score for certain players who only played a handful of games but scored well, like Max Dowman (6.8), also shows a skew.
Arsenal’s starting right-back missed Jurrien Timber (7.0) the start for the final and his comparison to Ben White (5.8) and Cristhian Mosquera (6.6) show exactly just the level of quality Arteta lacked against PSG, and how much the full-back needs a better understudy for the following campaign; it is no surprise the position is under review for the transfer window.
William Saliba (7.0) and Gabriel Magalhaes (7.2) are unsurprising standout players and have formed the bedrock of the team’s solid back line. Piero Hincapie (6.8) and Riccardo Calafiori (6.8) scoring identically after all their performances just shows how good it is to have two exceptional options in their position.
Myles Lewis-Skelly (5.7) has naturally scored quite low due to his lack of consistent minutes and some dips in form at the start of the season, but his 9 against Fulham and then two 6s in the 1-0 wins over West Ham and Burnley show that this new midfield role is a sign that next season, perhaps that average will go up considerably.
Martin Zubimendi (6.5) had a stellar start to his first season at the club, scoring a 7/10 or higher in 15 of his first 20 league games. However, based on the final score, it is clear that the second half of the campaign saw a drop, with fatigue often cited as the reason.
Christian Norgaard (5.7) is a signing that many will likely look back on as a miss. Not because he isn’t a good player, but it’s clear that with more minutes spent on the parade bus than he did in the Premier League this season, his level is just not trusted by Arteta, and he needs to be upgraded.
Mikel Merino (6.5) was a big miss after his injury, and it is a shame that he wasn’t able to contribute in either cup final, but Kai Havertz (6.4) certainly made an impact by the end, scoring the crucial goal in the win over Burnley, and a shame his second successive Champions League cup final goal was not a winner this time around.
Viktor Gyokeres (6.1) had a slow start but came to life far more in the second portion, ending the season on 21 goals scored and a good base to build from, while Gabriel Jesus (5.6) was one of the lowest scorers, and most would agree his time has come at the club and needs to move on.
Both Martin Odegaard (6.4) and Eberechi Eze (6.3) had big contributions throughout the season, but decisions need to be made on how the midfield will evolve and who will take more of a lead next season. It is no surprise that Bukayo Saka (7.0) was one of the highest scorers, yet there is still a feeling that he needs to find an extra gear, and the injury that cost him big games this season is a fair reason, but next season, he needs to be looking to reach 20 goals, no doubt.
Noni Madueke (6.0), who was brought in to be the depth to Saka, drew plenty of scrutiny when he arrived. He definitely had moments of greatness, but on the whole, many will argue perhaps the likes of Ethan Nwaneri (6.3) could have offered more had he been given the opportunity, despite a lack of game time – he was scored for just four games.
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Gabriel Martinelli (5.6) did not have a good domestic season despite his goalscoring in the Champions League. He too is another the club will be considering offers for, while Leandro Trossard (6.5) showed why he was worthy of his terms being improved in the first half of the season, and then at the end, despite a dip in the middle; the left flank remains a critical area for investment this summer.
Kepa Arrizabalaga played just one league game, the final match against Crystal Palace, which was not considered for any of the data here, because the Premier League title had already been won. He scored 7 in that game (higher than David Raya’s average), but overall, his performance in the League Cup and FA Cup has demonstrated that perhaps Tommy Setford needs to be given his chance as the number two soon.
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