Kevin De Bruyne took another giant stride towards being named Premiership Player of the Year by putting Tottenham to the sword with a towering performance on Sunday. The Belgian midfielder lashed in the second goal and conducted the Man City orchestra with some magnificent raking passes and superb ball control. He has been sensational this season, but he will not have it all his own way. Teammate David Silva missed the Spurs game but the Spaniard has been equally impressive in pulling the strings for the league leaders, while over in Liverpool Mohamed Salah continues to send records tumbling with his goal scoring exploits.
On Sunday night the BBC awarded its Sports Personality of the Year award to long-distance runner Sir Mo Farah. Heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Joshua, was the odds-on favourite at most outlets, heavily fancied to win it all. F1 champ Lewis Hamilton was the second favourite, while Farah was out at the 10/1 mark. Farah trounced them all on the night, which shows that nothing is set in stone with these individual awards.
However, it is understandable that De Bruyne is the frontrunner right now as he has been consistently brilliant all season. He has six goals and eight assists and has a passing accuracy of 83.4% despite typically choosing to play difficult forward passes. He has been a revelation since Pep Guardiola converted him from a winger into a deep-lying playmaker and City’s forwards have reaped the benefits. De Bruyne already has a Bundesliga Player of the Year award under his belt and could soon add the Premiership gong to his collection.
But Silva will run him really close. The Spaniard has five goals and eight assists, despite missing the 4-1 rout of Tottenham, and has popped up with some crucial winners of late. He has a better passing accuracy than De Bruyne and he too is ambitious with his through balls, and he too has developed as a player since Guardiola dropped him deeper into midfield. Silva has been a magnificent servant to the Citizens over the years, frequently their most graceful, skilful and effective attacking force, but individual glory has thus far eluded him, so this could be his year. De Bruyne is 8/13 with Paddy Power, but Silva is a more attractive 13/2, so the Spaniard may tempt plenty of punters.
The Player of the Year award normally goes to a representative of the team that wins the title – and this year that is all but certain to be Man City – but not exclusively. Scott Parker won it one year for relegated West Ham, while Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez were also honoured more recently despite their teams falling short of glory. That could open the door for Salah (6/1 with Bet Victor and 888 Sport), who has been absolute dynamite since joining Liverpool from Roma in the summer. The Egyptian became the first Reds player to hit 20 goals in a season when he scored in the 4-0 win over Bournemouth on Sunday, and it is only mid-December.
Salah’s exploits are all the more impressive when you consider that he is not a central striker. He plays out wide, cutting in to deadly effect and benefiting from the creativity of Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino. If he keeps this up he will be putting forward a compelling case to be named the Premiership’s best player, and Liverpool will shoot up the table.
An interesting long shot could be Raheem Sterling, who scored twice as City beat Spurs 4-1. He has outscored Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus for the league leaders and is behind only Salah and Harry Kane in the Premiership top scorer charts. He has popped up loads of winning goals this season and is really starting to deliver on his promise. If Salah fades, Sterling could be in contention for the Golden Boot and that
would boost his chances, so he looks interesting at 25/1 with Green-Listed Bookmakers.
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