The Premier League is the world's greatest league, so it goes without saying that it's played host to some of the world's finest footballers.
And the 2010s were certainly no exception in that regard, as an array of top talent from all over the world graced the English top flight.
Here, FourFourTwo counts down the best Premier League players of the 21st century's second decade.
34. Leighton Baines
Promoted to the Premier League with Wigan in 2005, Leighton Baines went on to make more than 400 top-flight appearances – most of them for Everton, where he made successive PFA Teams of the Year in 2012 and 2013.
A set-piece specialist and one of the best left-backs around during the first half of the 2010s, Baines featured twice for England at the 2014 World Cup.
33. Joe Hart
Signed from third-tier Shrewsbury Town in 2006, Joe Hart was Manchester City’s first-choice goalkeeper by 2007 – and a Premier League champion five years later.
The division’s clean-sheet leader in four of the first five seasons of the 2010s, Hart – who earned 75 England caps – helped City to another title in 2013/14.
32. Kieran Trippier
Having failed to break through at Manchester City as a youngster, Kieran Trippier eventually got his Premier League break following promotion with Burnley in 2014.
And the versatile right-back looked right at home at the highest level, earning a big move to Tottenham the following summer – and helping Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs to three successive top-three finishes.
31. Jan Vertonghen
Named in the 2012/13 and 2017/18 PFA Premier League Teams of the Year, Jan Vertonghen was a rock at the back for Tottenham for the best part of a decade.
The trustworthy Belgium centre-back racked up 232 league appearances for Spurs, with whom he also reached the Champions League and EFL Cup finals.
30. Frank Lampard
Chelsea’s record goalscorer and probably their greatest player of all time, Frank Lampard began the 2010s in style by finishing the 2009/10 Premier League campaign with 22 goals – thus becoming the first midfielder to reach the 20-goal mark in the competition.
That season saw Lampard win his third top-flight title, and he kept on going at the highest level until 2014/15 – which he spent with Manchester City.
29. Gary Cahill
One of the most reliable Premier League players of the 2010s, Gary Cahill starred in the heart of Chelsea’s 2014/15 and 2016/17 title-winning defences.
Included in three PFA Teams of the Year while with the Blues, the 61-time England centre-back bookended the decade with spells at Bolton and Crystal Palace.
28. Jamie Vardy
At the beginning of the 2010s, no one knew who Jamie Vardy was: he Was plying his trade for Stocksbridge Park Steels in the semi-professional seventh tier of English football.
Six years later, he had fired Leicester to their miraculous Premier League title triumph, breaking Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in 11 straight games en route – and winning the prestigious FWA (Football Writers’ Association) Footballer of the Year award.
27. Steven Gerrard
Among the best players never to get their hands on the Premier League title (although he went close on more than one occasion), Steven Gerrard captained Liverpool by example until his departure in 2015.
Included in the PFA Team of the Year for the eighth and final time in 2013/14, Gerrard scored almost 50 goals during his final five years in the world’s greatest league.
26. David de Gea
He may have been maligned for calamitous mistakes towards the end of his 12-year Manchester United career, but there’s no denying that David de Gea was one of the Premier League’s top goalkeepers of the 2010s.
A title winner in 2012/13 – Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season in management – the lanky Spaniard won the 2017/18 Golden Glove for the most Premier League clean sheets, also making it into his fifth Team of the Season that decade.
25. Christian Eriksen
One of the Premier League’s all-time leading assist providers, Christian Eriksen’s supreme midfield playmaking was integral to Tottenham’s sustained strong showings under Mauricio Pochettino.
Signed from Ajax in the summer of 2014, the Denmark legend scored 51 goals in 226 league outings for Spurs before leaving for Inter Milan in January 2020, making it into the 2017/18 PFA Team of the Year.
24. John Terry
Arguably the greatest defender in Premier League history, John Terry captained Chelsea to five titles – the last three of them in 2009/10, 2014/15 and 2016/17.
Included in the PFA Team of the Year for the fourth and final time in 2015, the Blues academy graduate left Stamford Bridge as a free agent in 2017, ending a 22-year association with the West London giants.
23. Michael Carrick
Michael Carrick must go down as one of the most underrated English players of all time. Not that he’d have minded: the metronomic deep-lying playmaker quietly kept Manchester United ticking throughout the 2010s.
Admired by the likes of Pep Guardiola and Xavi, Carrick won the 2010/11 and 2012/13 Premier League titles with United, taking his career total to five.
22. Petr Cech
Petr Cech had already established himself as one of the game’s best ever goalkeepers during a trophy-laden 11-year stay at Chelsea – who he left in 2015 with a fourth Premier League winners’ medal around his neck.
The headguard-wearing Czech giant moved on to Arsenal, where he remained until hanging up his gloves in 2019 – having made 453 Premier League appearances and set a new competition clean sheet record of 202.
21. Philippe Coutinho
Not as many Brazilians have made their mark on the Premier League as perhaps ought to be the case – but Philippe Coutinho’s impact for Liverpool was unmistakable.
A scorer of truly spectacular goals, Coutinho found the net 41 times in 152 league games for the Reds between 2013 and 2018, earning inclusion in the 2014/15 PFA Team of the Year.
20. Virgil van Dijk
Having caught the eye in Scotland with Celtic, Virgil van Dijk joined Premier League Southampton in 2015 and soon became one of the most sought-after defender in Europe.
Midway through the 2017/18 season, Liverpool won the race to sign the imposing Dutchman, bringing him to Anfield for £75m – and he proved to be worth every penny, establishing himself as probably the best centre-back on the planet.
19. Alexis Sanchez
Chile’s greatest player of all time, Alexis Sanchez spent just three-and-a-half seasons with Arsenal – but that’s all he needed to establish himself as an all-time club great.
Nigh-on impossible to play against at his best, Sanchez averaged almost a goal every other Premier League game for the Gunners, netting 24 times during the 2016/17 campaign alone (we’ll glaze over his subsequent brief stint at Manchester United).
18. Kyle Walker
A back-to-back Premier League champion with Manchester City in the late 2010s, prime Kyle Walker was among the very best right-backs on the planet – and one of the fastest players around.
Signed from Tottenham in 2017, the England regular made the PFA Teams of the Year for 2011/12 – when he also scooped PFA Young Player of the Year – 2016/17 and 2017/18.
17. Ederson
When Pep Guardiola took over as Manchester City manager in 2016, he wanted a ball-playing goalkeeper. Claudio Bravo didn’t cut the mustard in his first season at the Etihad Stadium, so in came Ederson in the summer of 2017 – and the rest is history.
Often cited as technically proficient enough to play outfield (and he probably could at a lower level), the outrageously laid-back Brazilian starred in City’s 2017/18 and 2018/19 Premier League title triumphs – his first of many.
16. Sadio Mane
After bursting onto the Premier League scene with Southampton – where he set a new league record by scoring a hat-trick inside three minutes against Aston Villa – Sadio Mane joined Liverpool for £34m in the summer of 2016.
With the Reds, Senegal’s greatest ever player went from strength to strength, scoring 45 league goals in his first three seasons and sharing the 2018/19 Golden Boot as one of the first two African players to win the award (along with teammate Mo Salah and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang).
15. Fernandinho
To get through Manchester City between 2013 and 2019, you had to get through Fernandinho – and that was no mean feat at all.
Signed from Shakhtar Donetsk for £34m, the Brazilian midfield lynchpin passed 200 Premier League appearances for City by the end of the decade, winning three Premier League titles in that time – two as skipper.
14. N’Golo Kante
Plucked from the relative obscurity of French outfit Caen by Leicester in the summer of 2015, N’Golo Kante would soon be renowned as one of the world’s premier midfield destroyers.
Instrumental to Leicester’s fairytale Premier League title win of 2015/16, the unassuming Frenchman followed that triumph up by winning it again with Chelsea the next season – when he also did the FWA Footballer of the Year and PFA Players’ Player of the Year double.
13. Riyad Mahrez
Two years later, Manchester City came calling, and the Algerian wing wizard added another Premier League crown in 2018/19.
Another prominent prong of Leicester’s extraordinary 2015/16 success, Riyad Mahrez capped off a remarkable campaign by picking up PFA Players’ Player of the Year and PFA Fans’ Player of the Year.
12. Harry Kane
In August 2011, Harry Kane made his Tottenham debut; within a matter of years, he had emerged as one of the most lethal strikers in world football.
Named 2014/15 PFA Young Player of the Year, by 2018, Kane was England captain, and had passed the 100-goal mark in the Premier League and won his first two Golden Boots.
11. Robin van Persie
From 2010/11 to 2014/15, Robin van Persie banged in 86 Premier League goals – 38 for Arsenal and 48 for Manchester United, including a career-best 30 in 2011/12 to win the Golden Boot (he was also voted PFA Players’ Player of the Year).
A 2012/13 Premier League champion, the brilliant Dutchman had a knack of finding the net in spectacular fashion.
10. Vincent Kompany
One of the great Premier League defenders, Vincent Kompany was crucial to Manchester City’s rock-solid foundations for almost the entirety of the 2010s.
Captain of two Premier League title-winning sides at City, the legendary Belgian – who made three PFA Teams of the Year – also scored the goal – a veritable screamer – which all but secured the 2018/19 championship.
9. Luis Suarez
With 69 goals in 110 Premier League appearances between 2011 and 2014, Luis Suarez certainly made his mark on Liverpool – and the English top flight as a whole.
Never shy of sinking his teeth into the opposition, the Uruguayan great left the Reds after only three-and-a-half seasons – but not without breaking the record for the most goals in a 38-game Premier League campaign (31 in 2013/14).
8. Gareth Bale
Undoubtedly one of the best British players of all time, Gareth Bale left the Premier League for Real Madrid in 2013 – but his time at Tottenham (and an inspired tweak from Harry Redknapp) made him the world-class winger that lit up Europe with Real Madrid.
And the Welsh icon ended his first Spurs spell with a bang, notching 21 league goals in 2012/13 – when he scooped PFA Players’ Player of the Year for the second time in three seasons.
7. Wayne Rooney
Manchester United’s all-time leading goalscorer, Wayne Rooney was at the peak of his powers during the early part of the 2010s, bagging a career high 27 Premier League goals in the 2011/12 campaign.
The future England captain collected his fifth and final league winner’s medal the following season, eventually leaving United in 2017 having made just shy of 400 Premier League appearances for the club.
6. Eden Hazard
Eden Hazard was as good as unstoppable when in full flow – look no further than his incredible solo goal against Arsenal in 2017 – and Chelsea fans got to enjoy the Belgian superstar at his electric best between 2012 and 2019.
A two-time Premier League champion, Hazard netted 85 times in the competition and made it into the PFA Team of the Year on four occasions.
5. Yaya Toure
One of the best box-to-box midfielders of all time, Yaya Toure joined Frank Lampard in scoring 20 goals from midfield when he hit the mark for Manchester City in 2013/14.
Three times a Premier League title winner with City, the Ivorian icon was named in the 2011/12 and 2013/14 PFA Teams of the Year.
4. Mo Salah
From the moment he scored on his Liverpool debut against Watford in 2017, it seemed obvious that Mo Salah was not the same Mo Salah who had flopped at Chelsea only a few years earlier.
PFA Players’ Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year and Golden Boot winner in his maiden Premier League campaign – notching 32 goals to beat Luis Suarez’s 38-game season record – the Reds’ ‘Egyptian King’ shared the latter prize with teammate Sadio Mane and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2018/19.
3. Sergio Aguero
We’ll let Martin Tyler start this one off: “AGUEEEEEROOOOOOOOOO”
In the dying minutes of the final day of the 2011/12 Premier League season, Sergio Aguero produced the most dramatic moment in the history of the competition, scoring the goal which clinched Manchester City’s first title in 44 years.
Golden Boot winner in 2014/15, the devastatingly clinical Argentine amassed more than 150 Premier League goals between his 2011 arrival from Atletico Madrid and the end of the 2010s, becoming the competition’s record foreign scorer.
2. Kevin De Bruyne
Sergio Aguero scored Manchester City’s goals; Kevin De Bruyne made them, joining from Wolfsburg in 2015 and emphatically silencing the critics who wrote him off after his previous struggles at Chelsea.
Included in the PFA Team of the Year for the first time in 2017/18, the inimitable Belgian playmaker won his maiden Premier League title that same season – then followed it up with another one the following campaign.
1. David Silva
Arguably Manchester City’s greatest player of all time, David Silva was pivotal in the club’s transition from Premier League contenders to dominant force.
Spending the whole decade with City, the World Cup and Euro-winning Spanish attacking midfield genius made 309 Premier League appearances, scoring 60 goals – among them so truly special efforts – and making it into the PFA Team of the Year on three occasions.
