Staff Reporter.
Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne were on Wednesday named among the six nominees for the English Professional Footballers Association Player of the Year award.
De Bruyne is the current holder of the award, having won it the last two seasons, while Ronaldo won the award twice in his first stint with Manchester United in 2007 and 2008.
The other nominees include Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah and Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane.
Kane started the season in awful form, recovering to score 17 goals for Antonio Conte’s side, but many will feel that his teammate Son Heung-min was more deserving of a nomination after the forward scored 23 to share the Golden Boot with Salah.
Ronaldo also had a great individual year scoring 18 on his return to English football but was unable to save United’s blushes with the Red Devils finishing the season in sixth place with their lowest points tally in Premier League history.
Nevertheless, his nomination does give him the chance, like De Bruyne, to become the first player to win the PFA award three times having previously triumphed in 2007 and 2008.
Among those to miss out are the likes of City’s Joao Cancelo, Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, West Ham duo Declan Rice and Jarrod Bowen, and Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse.