Former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler has heaped praise on ‘exceptional’ Reds centre half Virgil van Dijk and believes he deserves to win this year’s Player of the Season award.
The Dutch international has enjoyed a phenomenal campaign, the best seen by a defender in the Premier League for a long time, and Fowler believes he has done enough to nick the top prize.
“Van Dijk all day long,” he told BT Sport when asked who should win the award. “As much as Raheem Sterling has been brilliant, I think Van Dijk has been exceptional. He’s took Liverpool to a different level.”
Player of the Year? ?
VVD or @rioferdy5? ?
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OPINION
This is a debate that is going to rage on until the award has eventually been won, but at this point of the season you’d have to say that Van Dijk is in pole position for the Player of the Season award. There are a number of other players who have had terrific campaigns: Alisson and Sadio Mane at Liverpool, Aymeric Laporte, Bernardo Silva and Sterling at Manchester City. However, Van Dijk has had a better personal campaign than any of them. There’s always a bit of recency bias with these things, which is why Mane and Sterling have really come to the fore of late. But when you look at the season as a whole, no one has been better than Liverpool’s indomitable centre half. He has simply been superb and he deserves to win the top prize come the end of the campaign. Sterling has been phenomenal, Mane enchanting, but Van Dijk has without doubt been the finest player in the division from start to finish.
