Van Dijk beats Sterling to FSA Player of the Year award
Premier League
By
Mirror
| Dec 17, 2019
Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk has won the Football Supporters' Association men's player of the year to cap off an outstanding personal 12 months for the defender.
Van Dijk beat Raheem Sterling to the award, with the Manchester City man coming second, while the other nominations were Liverpool's Sadio Mane, Heung-Min Son of Tottenham , Leicester's Jamie Vardy and Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Over 340,000 votes were cast and in the end van Dijk came out on top, with the Dutch colossus' performances one of the main factors in Liverpool winning the Champions League and remaining unbeaten so far in the current Premier League season.
After he picked up the award van Dijk said: "I'm very grateful to win this trophy. It means a lot to me."
The award may go some way to helping the 28-year-old get over the disappointment of missing out on the Ballon d'Or, with Barcelona star Lionel Messi just beating van Dijk to the prize earlier this month.
It was the same result for the Best FIFA Men's Player prize, although van Dijk did win the PFA Players' Player of the Year award for his performances last season.
Vivianne Miedema of Arsenal won the FSA women's player of the year award for her role in helping the Netherlands to the World Cup final during the summer, while she has also bagged a sensational 26 goals in 16 games for the Gunners so far this season. Van Dijk is currently in Qatar with Liverpool for the Club World Cup where he hopes to pick up one more trophy this year, although he didn't train with the first-team on Monday. He is not, however, thought to be injured, and could still be in line to play Monterrey.
The Reds take on the Mexican side in Wednesday's semi-final, with the winner facing either Brazilians Flamengo or Saudi side Al-Hilal in the final on Saturday.