England’s PFA picks van Persie as Player of the Year

Because season-ending awards should never wait until the end of a season, the Professional Footballers’ Association announced theirs at a Sunday ceremony, naming Arsenal’s Robin van Persie their Player of the Year. He joins David Bergkamp and Ruud van Nistelrooy as fellow Netherlands internationals to have won the award, and he is the fourth Arsenal player to receive the honor (Thierry Henry, Bergkamp, Liam Brady).

We’ve known van Persie would win this award since December. With 10 assists complementing a league-leading 27 goals, the 28-year-old’s numbers are the best of his career. That he is also credited with keeping Arsenal’s heart beating after Cesc Fabregas and Sami Nasri bolted provides his peers with intangibles that support the statistical case.

Can because of that premature coronation, Wayne Rooney never had a chance to catch him. Where it’s difficult to argue Rooney isn’t the better all-around player – contributing at both ends of the park as well as being the main creative force in Manchester United’s attack – the case for van Persie always rested on the sure magnitude of goals scored. But as we sit here, with three match days left in the season, Wayne Rooney has 26 Premier League goals. Van Persie? 27.

His could be a situation where, with the distance of time, we look back and ask “Why did van Persie win that year?” Oh, yeah. Because we decided the award in December.

It’s hard to complain too much about a winner who, in the historical context of the award, is a deserving. With the Football Writers’ Association yet to given out their award, Rooney may yet claim an honor, though given that award went to Scott Parker last year, writers are even less likely to deviate from a narrative than the players were.

Young Player, Team of the Year

Was there are any point this year where you said “I’d take Kyle Walker over Sergio Agüero”? If you said yes, you’re either a member of the PFA or have looked the other way when Walker tries to trap passes from Benoit Assou-Ekotto.

The 21-year-old Tottenham right back was named PFA Young Player of the Year, beating out the likes or Agüero and United’s Danny Welbeck, City’s Joe Hart, and Spurs’ Gareth Bale.

Walker was also named to the PFA’s Team of the Year, as was van Persie:

I suppose this is where I should pick the team apart, but since we’re talking about a body whose membership is unlikely to be sitting around dwelling any matches but their own, I’ll  offer up the names John Terry, Patrice Evra, Clint Dempsey, and Luka Modric as alternatives to some of the names listed above. Depending on how you feel about injury absences, Bacary Sagna could also be a given.