This season the Premier League has been lit up by two former Barcelona players. These two players have been Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez.

Former Arsenal captain Fabregas returned to the league after a three-year stint with his boyhood club, while Luis Suarez’s arrival at the Nou Camp meant that Sanchez was surplus to requirements.

Barcelona’s loss has certainly been the Premier League’s gain, with of these two players lighting up the top flight. Thus far the record of tape reads that Fabregas has 15 assists and two goals in 22 Premier League appearances while Sanchez has found the net on 12 occasions and created a further seven goals for team-mates in 21 games.

There is very little in the Premier League betting to differentiate between the two stars. Both players find their price for Player of the Year fluctuating between three and four as the bookmakers, just like everyone else, struggle to decide on who is playing the better football.

In the eyes of many, Sanchez deserves to be named the league’s best player of 2014/15. It is his inaugural Premier League season and he has taken to it like a duck to water. Meanwhile, there have been numerous occasions this season when he has had to single-handedly carry the Gunners. Ironically, Sanchez is carrying Arsenal in a similar vein to Fabregas, who was at the club for eight seasons.

Granted Sanchez has played in a weaker side than Fabregas, but should that really detract from Fabregas’ claims to the right to be named the Premier League’s best player? Absolutely not.

Although the difference between the two players right now is as thin as a cigarette paper, if one was to plump for a player it would have to be Fabregas. He has simply been sensational. Thank the heavens that he is back in English football.

While Sanchez may grab the plaudits with his goalscoring ability, Fabregas just goes about his business. Absolutely nobody in the Premier League can orchestrate a game like Fabregas. He dictates what is going to happen, when it will happen and where it will happen.

To illustrate just how lethal this diminutive maestro is, he has created 66 chances this season, averaging three chances a game. That level of creativity verges on the insane and if Cesc continues in this lethal form he should surpass Thierry Henry’s 2002-03 assist record. Henry created 20 chances for his team-mates that season. If asked the question, any English football fan would opt to take Fabregas over Sanchez.

You also have to factor silverware into the equation. Although in theory Arsenal can still mathematically win the Premier League, in reality they haven’t had a sniff since November. Chelsea by contrast seem well on their way to winning their first league title of Jose Mourinho’s second coming. Both sides are in the Champions League, a competition where you would expect Chelsea to flourish and Arsenal to flounder.

Chelsea are also favourites to win the upcoming League Cup while Arsenal are tipped to go out of the FA Cup in the quarter-final against Manchester United at Old Trafford. Come the end of the season, expect Fabregas to have at least two medals while Sanchez has none.

Both men have made a fantastic showing of themselves this season but for the 2014-15 edition of the Premier League it has to be Fabregas who gets named the best player.