Arsenal enjoyed a memorable campaign and several stars have been nominated for awards
Declan Rice, David Raya and Gabriel Magalhaes have all been nominated for the PFA Players’ Player of the Year after helping Arsenal win the Premier League title. The Gunners ended their 22-year wait for top-flight silverware with all three men playing a vital part in that success.
Arsenal trio Rice, Raya and Gabriel will go up against Manchester City duo Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland, while Manchester United star Bruno Fernandes also nominated for the award.
The shortlist for the PFA Young Player of the Year will also be announced later this morning. The winners of those awards, along with EFL and WSL awards, will be announced on Tuesday, August 25 at the 53rd annual PFA Awards Ceremony in Manchester.
Arsenal fell just short of a historic Premier League and Champions League double after being beaten on penalties by PSG in Budapest, with Gabriel and Eberechi Eze missing crucial spot kicks.
Despite his visible disappointment at the result, Rice wants the Gunners to use that pain to fuel next season.
“The overriding emotion is that we are devastated that we have lost the Champions League final,” he said after the final whistle. “Penalty shootouts are a lottery, and we were on the losing end of that. But it doesn’t define us.
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“We started the season in July in Singapore on pre-season, and we are coming up to July again and the season is only just over, our 63rd game in all competitions. We are proud of each other, proud of how far we have come.
“To get the Premier League over the line was a dream come true and to win the Champions League would have been extra special. But it wasn’t meant to be.
“That’s football. We are gutted. We move on. There have been so many top players who took so many years to win their first Champions League and this is the way it is.
“We are going to take that loss, move forward and use these emotions and feelings to go on to win this competition in the future. Seeing that trophy, and seeing them lift that, we want that, we want that success, so we will be back, that’s for sure.”
Those comments came prior to Mikel Arteta’s post-match press conference, where the Arsenal boss called on the board to show their ambition.
“First of all, I will take a few days with my family and then we will start the process to review what we have done,” he said. “We will have to start making some very important decisions if we want to reach another level.
“We are going to have to show that ambition because we are more than capable of doing it, but it is going to demand us to be very ambitious, very fast and very smart.”
If Arsenal strengthen again this summer, it won’t come as a surprise to see more Gunners’ stars nominated for PFA awards in the future.
