The first month of the 2025/26 Premier League season is in the books, and although there’s been only 3 matches played by every team as we sit in the September international break, that’s enough time to give a nod to the players who have started the season on a hot streak.
Whether it’s long-time stars of the Premier League, new transfers making an immediate impact, or underrated players just waiting to get their due, there’s been no shortage of standout performances to start the campaign.
In fact, it was awfully tough leaving out players like Cody Gakpo, Trevoh Chalobah, Jurrien Timber, Antoine Semenyo, Mohammed Kudus, and more footballers who have started the 2025/26 Premier League season on a torrid pace. But here are the top five.
5. Liverpool CB Virgil van Dijk
In case anyone had the sheer gall to doubt that Virgil van Dijk is one of the greatest players to ever grace a Premier League pitch, the Dutch titan reminded them of their ignorance with a commanding display in a must-win performance against top Premier League title contenders Arsenal.
Van Dijk led defending champions Liverpool by example, like he always does, with a majestic passing performance that would make controlling midfielders proud while cleaning up any sense of danger before it even had a prayer of developing.
The Marc Guehi transfer collapse won’t matter to Liverpool when they have a center back playing this well, and with his intelligent reading of the game, the 34-year-old superstar is aging more gracefully than any other big name player in European football.
Through the first three undefeated games of the 2025/26 Premier League season for Liverpool, Van Dijk is averaging 1.7 blocks per game, more than three times the number of interceptions as dribbles allowed, and an outrageous 11.3 clearances per match.
4. Crystal Palace CB Maxence Lacroix
With all the hoopla surrounding England national team standout Marc Guehi and the Liverpool transfer that never was, it seems like the vast majority of Premier League fans forgot about the start to the season his center back partner is having.
Maxence Lacroix was one of the best defenders in the Bundesliga before earning an under-the-radar move to Crystal Palace, who caught the rest of the Bundesliga’s giants napping by plucking the ill-disciplined but highly talented Frenchman.
Although Lacroix’s had some predictable lumps in transitioning to the Premier League, he’s found his form over the past several months under former Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt manager Oliver Glasner, who has turned Lacroix into a true world beater in the world’s most competitive league.
Lacroix is a Premier League Player of the Season sleeper based on his early start to the 2025/26 campaign with 2.0 tackles, 2.0 interceptions, and 7.7 clearances per game without even allowing a single dribble against him. He even has an assist to boot.
3. Chelsea DM Moises Caicedo
Moises Caicedo is the second-best signing of the Todd Boehly era after Ballon d’Or candidate Cole Palmer, and on the heels of Rodri’s 2023/24 Ballon d’Or triumph over Real Madrid’s best and brightest, maybe the Ecuadorian superstar deserves some more “best in the world” shouts, too.
If he keeps it up, Chelsea fans will undoubtedly be screaming Caicedo’s candidacy from the rooftops, and his status as one of the best midfielders in the world – defensive or otherwise – is a formality at this point and is only unacknowledged by those so severely uninitiated to this game that you’d honestly have to wonder if they simply watch Premier League matches on Tik Tok.
Caicedo is a monster. He is an impenetrable force defensively, but far from being a stagnant wall, he is a dynamic tsunami of defensive prowess whose ball-carrying and ability to draw fouls from opposing midfielders are done at a maestro level.
He now plays on the ball like a world-class defensive midfielder who has mastered the art of outthinking players based on the knowledge he has accrued from playing the No. 6 and 8 positions so well, weaponizing his own intelligence against his colleagues.
This season, the 23-year-old Chelsea starlet, wise beyond his years, is averaging 6.7 combined tackles and interceptions per game with 0.3 dribbles completed allowed per match. As the kids say, holy ratio, Batman.
2. Everton LW Jack Grealish
Jack Grealish is back where he belongs, elevating a potentially relegated historic Premier League side to such a level that they have more than just a sliver of hope at competing for a European football slot for the 2026/27 season.
With four assists in three games, Grealish has opened up the entire pitch for the Evertonians, displaying a level of confidence, professionalism, and spirit of invention that is almost the perfect blend of the dynamism of his early career days at Aston Villa and the treble-winning guile of the understated outlet machine he became at the Etihad under Pep Guardiola.
The England international is now the best of all worlds on the left wing for an Everton side whose aggressive attacking transfer business is starting to pay dividends, as Grealish has finally unlocked the poaching skills of Beto while forming one of the league’s most dynamic outside creative pairings with Iliman Ndiaye.
1. Chelsea CF Joao Pedro
Yet as brilliant as Grealish and the more defensive footballers have been to start the 2025/26 Premier League season, nobody has taken the league by storm as quickly as Joao Pedro, who is one of the biggest fantasy Premier League darlings alongside Ballon d’Or-caliber teammate Cole Palmer.
Pedro’s all-around ability, creativity, work rate, versatility, and vastly underrated football IQ were noted but not quite fully appreciated at Brighton, and now Chelsea fans are realizing that he’s considerably better than even they thought – and most were already pretty stoked to see him at Stamford Bridge.
The 23-year-old center forward certainly has the stats with four goal contributions and two fouls drawn per game in Chelsea’s opening three matches, but his impact on Chelsea has gone far beyond the numbers.
Pedro has elevated the entire team with his willingness and ability to be everywhere all at once. He can drop deep, drift wide, fox in the box, hold play up, and function in three different roles in the same game. The entire Premier League has been put on notice by this new Blue.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling.