Former Premier League midfielder Don Hutchison has responded to Rio Ferdinand’s comments on Saturday on Liverpool centre back Virgil van Dijk.
The former England international told BT Sport that either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo should have won the UEFA Player of the Year award ahead of the Dutch superstar.
BBC pundit Hutchison has now responded to those comments: “That’s why we love football for “the debate” all three had a case,” he wrote on his personal Twitter account.
“VVD outstanding as the other two were, but VVD won the champions Lge…”
https://twitter.com/donhutch4/status/1167769647661355008
OPINION
This is an interesting debate, isn’t it? Look, there’s no arguing with the numbers that Ronaldo and Messi have been posting for over a decade now. You couldn’t have gone wrong giving the award to either of the three men, because they were all absolutely outstanding last season. However, you have to consider the effect that each man had on their respective team and consider who the biggest influence was last time out. In that regard, the only answer can be Van Dijk. Messi and Ronaldo were both superb, but neither man was able to propel his side any further than they had gone the previous season. Barcelona won La Liga again but fell short in the Champions League, as was the case with Ronaldo at Juventus. Van Dijk, though, propelled his team to European glory and in any other year would have helped them to Premier League success as well. Yes, this probably was a case of exhaustion with Messrs Messi and Ronaldo, but you can’t begrudge Van Dijk the award.
