Lauren James: Player of the Season and Goal of the Season Winner
Lauren James has spent the season turning setbacks into statements. Now she has a new one to frame.
After starting the campaign on the treatment table, recovering from the injury she picked up while helping England retain the European Championship, James powered through 2025/26 with a run of performances that reminded everyone exactly how devastating she can be when fully fit. Goals, assists, swagger on the ball – she stitched it all together in a year that never quite felt routine when she was involved.
Supporters recognised it early. They voted the 24-year-old as the women's team Player of the Season, making her only the fourth player – after Fran Kirby, Sam Kerr and Erin Cuthbert – to win the award twice. That is not a casual list. It is the spine of an era at Chelsea, and James now sits firmly in that company.
Now comes the finish that defined her campaign.
A quarter-final strike for the scrapbook
The Goal of the Season award goes to a moment that felt like a turning point even as the ball was still in the air. First leg, UEFA Women's Champions League quarter-final, Arsenal. Chelsea were behind, the tie twitchy and tight, the atmosphere crackling with that particular edge only an all-English European clash can summon.
A corner was half-cleared, the ball looping out towards James on the edge of the box. One touch to settle. A shift onto her left – the so-called weaker foot – that sent her marker the wrong way. Then the whip.
From 25 yards, James ripped a shot that arced away and flew into the top corner. No deflection. No doubt. A strike hit with such conviction that the goalkeeper’s dive felt almost symbolic, a gesture rather than a genuine attempt to stop it.
It was the sort of goal that silences a stadium for a split second before the noise crashes back in. The kind you replay that night, and the next morning, and the week after.
Beating Kerr and Carpenter to the crown
When the supporters’ vote opened, there were strong contenders. Sam Kerr’s final goal for the club – a clean, emphatic volley against Manchester United – carried its own emotional weight, a farewell finish from one of Chelsea’s greatest modern forwards. Ellie Carpenter’s driving solo effort against Barcelona, all pace and purpose, had the makings of a classic European highlight.
But the James strike cut through the competition.
She claimed a third of all votes, pulling clear of Kerr in second and Carpenter in third. It was a decisive verdict from a fanbase that has watched some spectacular goals in recent years and knows the difference between a good finish and a defining one.
Player of the Season. Goal of the Season. At 24, Lauren James is not just collecting awards; she is starting to build a legacy.
