{"id":17042,"date":"2019-04-29T00:20:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T05:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=17042"},"modified":"2019-04-29T00:21:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T05:21:54","slug":"liverpools-van-dijk-wins-englands-pfa-player-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=17042","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool’s Van Dijk wins England’s PFA Player of the Year award"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Liverpool stalwart Van Dijk named PFA Player of the Year<\/h1>\n
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\"Virgil\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/span> <\/span>The Premier League finally showed some love to a defender.<\/strong>Liverpool<\/a> anchor Virgil van Dijk<\/a> was named PFA Players’ Player of the Year on Sunday. It’s the first time a striker or midfielder hasn’t claimed the league’s top individual honor since Chelsea icon John Terry took home the prize in 2004-05.<\/strong>Van Dijk, 27, beat out fellow nominees Raheem Sterling<\/a>, Sadio Mane<\/a>, Bernardo Silva<\/a>, Sergio Aguero<\/a>, and Eden Hazard<\/a> for the award, which is voted on by the players.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s pretty difficult to put into words,” Van Dijk said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I think it’s the highest honor you can get as a player to get voted player of the year by the players you play against every week. It’s special. I’m very proud and honored to receive it.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"It was always going to take a virtuoso season-long performance for a defensively oriented player – particularly a center-back – to garner this type of recognition, and that’s precisely what the Anfield favorite has delivered.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An indispensable force for Jurgen Klopp since making a \u00a375-million move from Southampton in January of 2018, Van Dijk has been instrumental in transforming the Reds into the Premier League’s stingiest side; Liverpool <\/strong>have conceded a league-best 20 goals through 36 matches this season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The towering defender, who has also chipped in with three goals at the other end, becomes the eighth Liverpool player to get his hands on the coveted hardware. He joins Terry McDermott (1979-80), Kenny Dalglish (1982-83), Ian Rush (1983-84), John Barnes (1987-88), Steven Gerrard (2005-06), Luis Suarez <\/a>(2013-14) and Mohamed Salah<\/a>, last year’s winner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liverpool may ultimately concede the league title to Manchester City, but Van Dijk has done everything in his power – and then some – to deliver a first Premier League crown to the Merseyside club.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Virgil van Dijk is a Dutch professional footballer<\/a> who plays as a centre back<\/a> for English Premier League<\/a> club Liverpool<\/a> and captains<\/a> the Netherlands national team<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"After beginning his professional career with Groningen<\/a>, he moved to Celtic<\/a> in 2013, where he won the Scottish Premiership<\/a> and was named in the PFA Scotland Team of the Year<\/a> in both of his seasons with the club, also winning the Scottish League Cup<\/a> in the latter. In September 2015, he joined Premier League side Southampton<\/a> before signing for Liverpool in January 2018 for \u00a375\u00a0million, a world record transfer fee<\/a> for a defender.<\/sup> Van Dijk was involved in reaching the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final<\/a> during his first spring at Liverpool. Van Dijk made his international debut for the Netherlands in 2015 and became captain of his country in 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Considered to be one of the best defenders in the world, he is known for his strength, leadership and aerial ability.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpool stalwart Van Dijk named PFA Player of the Year \u00a0\u00a0 The Premier League finally showed some love to a defender.Liverpool anchor Virgil van Dijk was named PFA Players’ Player of the Year on Sunday. It’s the first time a striker or midfielder hasn’t claimed the league’s top individual honor since Chelsea icon John Terry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,1314,1456,1156,13,14,108,7,9,10],"tags":[3084],"class_list":["post-17042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-entertainment","category-global-business-entrepreneurs","category-global-news-updates-and-more","category-global-sports","category-health","category-most-commented","category-soccer-sports-news","category-sports","category-us","category-world","tag-virgilvdijk","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}