Best Premier League central midfielders: Top 20 CM, CDM in 2023/24 EPL

The heartbeat of any team, the leading central midfielders in the Premier League will be aiming to inspire their clubs to greater heights this season.

The need for control of the 'engine room' of a football pitch is pivotal. It's a key battleground in any top-flight match and one that the best teams simply cannot afford to yield.

Ahead of the 2023/24 campaign, The Sporting News polled its football writers to rank the top performers in each position. We then used those responses to create an average, which then allowed us to order the players into a top 20.

Manchester City have dominated over recent years with a midfield unit moulded in Pep Guardiola's image, while Arsenal have made Declan Rice the most expensive British footballer in history and rebuild of the Liverpool unit saw them sign four midfielders during the transfer window.

Read on to find out our top central midfielders in the Premier League, ranked from 20 to one.

 How do you improve a team that just won the treble? Over to you, Pep Guardiola

A fine foil for Rice during his stratospheric rise over recent seasons, Soucek remains at West Ham and dependable as ever. An expert when it comes to screening his defence, the Czech Republic international also has a decent knack in front of goal and finished a breakout 2020/21 Premier League season with 10 to his name.

Superb during his first season at Wolves having caught the eye at Sporting CP, Nunes faces the daunting task of trying to establish himself within City's central midfield array. Encouragingly, Guardiola said the Portugal international was "one of the best players in the world today" when City faced Sporting in the Champions League in 2022 — and he never said that about Kalvin Phillips.

Liverpool were not shy in