Leroy Sane is Young Player of the Year; Fran Kirby wins Women's Player of the Year; Cyrille Regis honoured with PFA Merit Award
Monday 23 April 2018 10:47, UK
Mohamed Salah has been voted the PFA Player of the Year for the 2017-18 season after a stellar first campaign at Liverpool.
The former Chelsea player beat off competition from Manchester City's title-winners Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Leroy Sane with Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea and Tottenham striker Harry Kane completing the six-man shortlist of nominees.
Salah and De Bruyne have been the standout players during the campaign, which has seen Pep Guardiola's side clinch the league title with five games to spare, but the Liverpool man secured the most votes from his peers after scoring 41 goals in 46 appearances for the Anfield club.
The 25-year-old, who was signed for £34m from Roma, is the first Egyptian to win the award, presented at Grosvenor House in central London on Sunday evening.
"It's a big honour," Salah said. "I don't think about myself. The most important thing is to win something with the team and we're very close now with the semi-final. Hopefully we're going to win.
"The team has helped me a lot because of the way we play. They pass me the ball a lot and always try to find me."
Salah, who follows Luis Suarez, in 2014, as the last Liverpool player to earn the accolade, is a pivotal reason behind the club's run to the Champions League semi-finals and helping Jurgen Klopp's side all but secure a top-four spot in the league.
Salah became the first person in Premier League history to claim three Player of the Month awards in the same season, winning it in November, February and March, and was the only member of Liverpool's squad to be named in the PFA Team of the Year.
The Golden Boot frontrunner scored his 31st Premier League goal in Liverpool's 2-2 draw at West Brom on Saturday and will look to help the club to a first Champions League final since 2007, when he meets his former club Roma in the first leg of their semi-final on Tuesday.
Manchester City's Sane beat off competition from team-mates Ederson and Raheem Sterling, along with Kane, Fulham's Ryan Sessegnon and Manchester United's Marcus Rashford to land the Young Player of the Year award.
It is the first time a City player has won the award for 42 years - Peter Barnes landed it in 1975/76 - and Sane is the first German to hold the honour.
"I'm absolutely delighted to have won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award," Sane said.
Cyrille Regis' contribution to the game was recognised with a posthumous Merit award from the PFA.
The former West Brom and Coventry striker died of a heart attack in January aged 59 and his death prompted an avalanche of tributes.
His goalscoring prowess earned him five England caps, and helped Coventry win the FA Cup in 1987, but Regis is perhaps best known now as a pioneer for black players.
PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor said: "He was a great footballer, a true gentleman and a role model and mentor for
black players.
"You could tell how much he meant to people from the reaction to his death and we just felt it was right to honour him and his family in this way."
