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João Pedro picked up where he left off last season, and the Premier League noticed. The Brazilian striker claimed the EA Sports Premier League Player of the Month award for August 2026, rewarding a two-week stretch that saw him score twice and assist twice across Chelsea’s opening pair of matches.
Pedro is the first Chelsea striker to win the monthly award since Diego Costa managed it back in 2016, a drought spanning nearly a full decade.
Two games, four goal contributions
Chelsea opened their 2026/27 campaign with a 3-2 victory against Fulham, and Pedro wasted approximately zero time making his presence felt. He found the net just moments after kickoff, setting the tone for what turned into a chaotic west London derby.
The second match was somehow even wilder. Chelsea hosted Brighton, Pedro’s former club, and survived a 4-3 thriller at Stamford Bridge. Pedro contributed to both results with a combined two goals and two assists.
The award was announced on September 11, with Pedro beating out a shortlist of several other prominent performers through a public vote. He became just the seventh Brazilian player in Premier League history to win the monthly honor, joining names like Lucas Moura and Rodrigo Muniz on that particular list.
He’s also the first Chelsea player of any position to take home the award since Cole Palmer did so in September 2024.
From Brighton bargain to Chelsea’s main man
The club paid a reported fee of €63.7 million to pry him away from Brighton. In the 2025/26 season, Pedro scored 20 goals across all competitions for Chelsea. Fifteen of those came in the Premier League alone, a tally that made him the club’s most prolific striker in years. He was named Chelsea’s internal Player of the Season for that campaign.
Pedro had also picked up Chelsea’s internal Player of the Month award for both February and March 2026, suggesting his August form wasn’t a sudden explosion but rather the continuation of a trend that started in the second half of last season.
At 24 years old, Pedro is entering the years that tend to define a striker’s career.
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