Poll: PFA Player of the Year

[BaZ87]

A bit late for this thread as it's already being reported that Van Dijk will be announced the winner tomorrow but here's the nominations for Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year:

Aguero
Bernardo
Hazard
Mane
Sterling
Van Dijk

Alexander-Arnold
Bernardo
Brooks
Rice
Rashford
Sterling

And yes, it's mad that 24 year olds can be nominated for the Young Player of the Year award. It'll be Van Dijk and Sterling.

 

[BaZ87]

PFA Team of the Year: Ederson, TAA, Van Dijk, Laporte, Robertson, Fernandinho, Bernardo, Pogba, Mane, Sterling, Aguero.

Ederson and Pogba have hugely benefitted from the lack of brain power of your average footballer. Alisson's been far and away the best keeper in the league this year, making over 30% more saves to goals conceded than Ederson (even Lloris has out performerd Ederson), including making a higher percentage of 'harder' saves too. For Pogba to get picked ahead of David Silva, Eriksen, Wijnaldum, Kante and even Xhaka is a **** take though. The likes of Salah and Hazard will feel hard done by but at least you can make a claim for the the players that have been picked ahead of them.

 

[BaZ87]

PFA team of the year should have had Alisson instead of Ederson, Eriksen instead of Pogba, and Hazard instead of Mane imo, the rest of it I agree with. Personally although I think Mane has been excellent I don't think he's been as vital to Liverpool as Hazard has to Chelsea.

Without questioning Hazard's inclusion, I'm not too sure about your thinking behind it. Chelsea collectively being poorer than Liverpool shouldn't be used against Mane. You can make cases for the front 3 that were picked plus Hazard and Salah, the timing of the votes played a big part on which 3 actually made it though. IINM voting is usually carried out in February/March time which coincided with Mane, Aguero and Sterling seemingly scoring ever week. I'd have gone with Salah, Sterling and Hazard.

 

[BaZ87]

He did beat up his girlfriend years ago if I remember correctly but he was a kid back then.

 

[BaZ87]

I remember him being in the news caught doing some kind of drugs as well. He seem to have become the FA and medias' primary anti-racism campaigner over the last few months though so I wouldn't be surprised if any vote was rigged in his favour.

That was one of those legal high, balloon things. This isn't a criticism of him, more so the media, but since he called the media out over their double standards they've been falling over themselves to give him some good press, probably to try to prove they're not racist. A hell of a lot of players support charities and good causes without getting 10% of the coverage Sterling's got in the last week alone.

 

[BaZ87]

Confirmed that 24 year old Raheem Sterling has won the Young Player of the Year. Should have been Trent.

The main award will be announced soon but it'll be VVD.

 

[BaZ87]

If it wasn't for VVD then Sterling would have won the main award. It's because of VVD they gave him young player. He won't be eligible for that award next year when VVD wins it again.

We've seen a number of players in the past win both. Had it not been for VVD he'd have probably won both. It's mad that a 24 year old that's in his 7th/8th season of senior football qualifies for the young player of the year award but we say the same thing every year.

 

[BaZ87]

How have Liverpool repeated the same thing rob? We've gone for 6th-7th to 4th, to 4th and a CL Final to now picking up 90+ points, in with a chance of winning the title and in a CL semi.

Arsenal spending years finishing 2nd-4th, never threatening to win a major title you could argue was repeating the same thing. Over the last 3 years Liverpool have improved hugely year on year.

 

[BaZ87]

While improving is great and I am loving Klopps tenure, ultimately, winning things is what teams are judged on.

All he and the club can do is be the best they can be and give us the best possible chance of winning things. We have no control over Man City in the League or Barca tonight. If City win their remaining 2 games, finish the season with 98 points having won 18 of their last 19 League games hats off to them. Anybody that thinks picking up 90+ points, potentially 97 points, isn't an incredible achievement need to give their head a wobble. Similar tonight, Messi is arguably the greatest player of all time and if he turns it on then there might not be much we can do to win but we have to make sure we're at our best and make Barca/Messi be at their's to beat us.

 

[BaZ87]

You have no control over city as you are not facing them any more, but to say you have no control against Barca is silly. To say if Messi is in form there’s not much we can do sounds very defeatist when you have one of the best centre backs in the world in your side.

We cannot control how well Barca play - that's not silly, it's a fact. And it's not defeatist to say there might not be much we can do. Messi is the greatest player of all time, if he plays at the top of his game then we could play our absolute best and it still might not be good enough. I'm not saying it definitely won't be good enough or will be good enough - football at the highest level can be decided by the tiniest of margins but to rule out the possibility of Messi deciding the game on his own is naive to say the least.

Yes Baz, I agree. We haven’t been successful recently. Emery can get us back in the top four for the next ten years running, but until I see us lifting trophies, I won’t class his tenure as successful. At least in his final years, Wenger still have us some great trophy wins to enjoy.

So if you don't win a trophy this season you will want Wenger back I take it? As I touched on, where you ultimately finish in the league and whether you win a trophy or not isn't always down to how well you do yourself. All a side can do is play to their best and give themselves the best possible chance of winning.

 

[BaZ87]

No, I wont want Wenger back. I enjoyed the FA cups, but he was stagnating us to the point of moving further and further away from where we really want to be, and that's challenging for titles.

So you recognise that simply winning a FA Cup while finishing 6th isn't always going to be better than possibly winning nothing and still finishing 6th.

Wining a trophy is down to how well you do yourself. If you had managed to pick up just two more points, you'd be winning the title in all likelihood. I'm sure if you go through the season, you could pinpoint a few occasions where you have let yourselves down and dropped vital points.

If Huddersfield won all 38 games then they'd win the League too rob. I don't think anybody is going to be saying that to Huddersfield supporters though. If you think this Liverpool side was capable of picking up 100+ points and have underachieved if they only pick up 95 then fair enough, I'd say that was pretty stupid though and history would suggest that too.