Bruno Fernandes Equals Cristiano Ronaldo’s Premier League Record in Rapid Time

Fernandes is still shy of the all-time high watermark set by three Premier League legends.

Bruno Fernandes (left) and Cristiano Ronaldo both excelled for Man Utd in the Premier League. | Ash Donelon/Manchester United/James Gill-Danehouse/Getty Images

Bruno Fernandes equalled Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of six Premier League Player of the Month awards faster than his compatriot with the gong for March 2025. No other Manchester United star in the history of the competition can match either Portuguese figurehead and only three players from any club have been recognized more often.

Fernandes claimed his latest award after a staggering sequence of performances. Restored to his best position as attacking midfield fulcrum around which every United attack pivots, the 31-year-old scored twice and racked up four assists in four top-flight appearances across March.

Benjamin Šeško’s strike against Aston Villa was the only goal scored by a United player last month which didn’t have Fernandes’s bootprints all over it.

Despite serving as the one beacon of constant hope amid Manchester United’s misadventures in recent years, this is Fernandes’s first individual award in 12 months. Before he scooped the prize for March 2025, the Portugal international had not been recognized since his debut year at Old Trafford.

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Bruno Fernandes’s Premier League Player of the Month Wins

Month, Year	PL Apps	PL Goals and Assists
February 2020	2	1G 2A
June 2020	3	3G 0A
November 2020	4	4G 1A
December 2020	6	3G 4A
March 2025	2	2G 2A
March 2026	4	2G 4A

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Fernandes achieved the exceedingly rare feat of winning the Premier League Player of the Month award after his first month in the competition. Yet, there will little arguing with his swift adaptation to life in Manchester following at winter switch in 2020. Fernandes would become the first (and so far only) player in the competition’s history to be crowned the best of his peers in four separate months during the same calendar year.

Ronaldo was no stranger to a purple patch himself.

The 2006 World Cup served as a real turning point for Ronaldo. After initially impressing as a spaghetti-haired trickster for United upon his arrival in 2004, the dancing winger’s flourishes began to grate with his battle-hardened teammates. The Red Devils failed to win either Premier League title across his first two campaigns and Ronaldo returned to England in 2006 after eliminating the Three Lions with Portugal at that summer’s World Cup.

“He came back from the 2006 World Cup and his maturity had changed,” Ronaldo’s United teammate Gary Neville recalled. “His appearance and physical attributes completely changed overnight.

“He was scrawny, wiry and not very strong and then all of a sudden he was a supper middleweight boxer. He was incredible from a strength point of view and the ability to leap, change direction, everything fell into place. From that moment on you knew he was going to be really special.”

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Cristiano Ronaldo’s Premier League Player of the Month Wins

Ronaldo was just starting his prime during his first spell in England. | Stephane Reix/For Picture/Corbis/Getty Images

Month, Year	PL Apps	PL Goals and Assists
November 2006	5	2G 0A
December 2006	6	7G 2A
January 2008	4	6G 1A
March 2008	5	5G 3A
September 2021	3	3G 0A
April 2022	4	5G 0A

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Ronaldo would win two Player of the Month awards will firing United to the first of three successive titles before claiming another pair of honors in the 2007–08 campaign. Even upon his return to Old Trafford a decade later, Ronaldo still managed to stand out in the Premier League.

“He was one of the few players that would announce that individual trophies were important to him,” Neville added. Which suggests that Fernandes’s latest achievement won’t have gone down well.

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Fernandes Chasing Three Legends for All Time Record

Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool this summer. | Visionhaus/Getty Images

Fernandes may have matched Ronaldo’s high watermark, but he still needs one more individual award to equal the all-time Premier League record jointly shared by Sergio Agüero, Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah.

The latter could theoretically bolster his personal tally before leaving Liverpool at the season’s conclusion. However, his previous body of work this campaign suggests otherwise.

There are still the gongs of April and May to compete for, with Fernandes’s focus solely directed towards the Premier League thanks to Manchester United’s failings in other competitions. The Red Devils are up against Leeds United, Chelsea and Brentford this month before finishing the campaign against Liverpool, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest and Brighton & Hove Albion.

Player	Premier League Clubs	Player of the Month Awards
Sergio Agüero	Man City	7
Harry Kane	Norwich, Tottenham	7
Mohamed Salah	Chelsea, Liverpool	7
Bruno Fernandes	Man Utd	6
Cristiano Ronaldo	Man Utd	6
Steven Gerrard	Liverpool	6

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