Salah deserved Player of the Year, but so did De Bruyne
Mohamed Salah is a deserving Player of the Year, but then so is Kevin De Bruyne. How do you compare two such different players?
Mohamed Salah is the PFA Player of the Year, just reward for a remarkable first season at Liverpool that may yet see him break the Premier League goalscoring record. As deserving a recipient as the Egyptian is, however, this award, as ever, seems tell us more about us — the way we evaluate players, the things we allow to impact those evaluations, etc. — than the players themselves. This is both understandable and a shame, given the achievements of those who miss out.
Kevin De Bruyne is this year’s biggest loser (though the Premier League title will no doubt be a welcome consolation). The Belgian looked like the only realistic choice for the award through the first half of the season, but Salah’s form since the turn of the year inspired a re-think. Watching this shift in consensus was, among other things, a reminder the winner of this prize is usually determined by the strength of whatever narrative cross winds carry him through the season, rather than by the strength of his performances.
De Bruyne, as everyone agrees, has had a stunning year, playing as the primary creator in a side that look well-placed to break (shatter, really) the record Premier League points total. The Belgian’s range of passing, the sheer variety of ways he can slice open a defense — crosses, through-balls, first-time, no-look volleys, you name it — is breathtaking.
And when City don’t have the ball, he does everything we typically forgive players like him for not doing, hassling and harrying and pressing and tackling and so on. In short, and with due respect to David Silva, that ageless genius, De Bruyne is the best player on the best team in the country. What De Bruyne isn’t, unlike Salah, is a goalscorer.
And not only is Salah a goalscorer, he’s a goalscorer no one saw coming — not even his manager, not even himself. When Salah arrived at Anfield, it seemed Jurgen Klopp had essentially added a left-footed Sadio Mane, a smart move considering (a) Mane is really good and (b) the Reds struggled without him last season. When you add in the fact Salah scored 15 goals for Roma in 2016-17, it was pretty clear the Reds thought they were adding another decent goalscoring option to their attacking ranks.
But this, 41 goals and counting? No one saw this coming. Indeed, the early analysis of Salah, four or five games into his Liverpool career, was that if he could learn how to finish he’d score 50 goals a season. He’s learned quickly.
Even now, though, there’s a certain feeling of uncanniness involved in watching him play, as there is with all players whose most dangerous work is done without the ball. The Egyptian averages fewer touches per 90 minutes than any outfield player who has started more than 10 league games for the Reds this season. There are long stretches when you hardly notice him, and then suddenly he’s scored a hat-trick. Wait, you think to yourself, what? That, of course, is exactly what makes good movement good: You don’t notice it until it’s too late.
All of this — not to mention Salah’s previous stint in England or, for that matter, his time in Serie A — has led to the feeling we’re seeing some kind of extended magic trick. Every new goal brings the same excitement, except with an increasingly large dose of incredulity: He can’t keep doing this, can he? We may, at some point in the near future, become desensitized, but for now it seems fair to say the sheer unexpectedness of Salah’s season played a big role in propelling him to the Player of the Year award.
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How do we compare all this to De Bruyne, who is heavily involved in City’s build-up (he averages almost 30 more passes per 90 in the league than Salah does total touches), who roams all over the pitch to get on the ball, who does almost everything except what Salah has done 41 times this season (although, to be fair, he’s done it 12 times anyway) and who has done it all for a team that eliminated any sense of excitement from the title race long before it even had a chance to get started?
As ever, then, the Player of the Year award presents a fascinating case study in the things we value when we evaluate players, and how circumstances well beyond an individual player’s control impact those evaluations. There’s no way of knowing exactly how things would have changed if City faced a real title challenge, or if you flipped the second half of their league season with the first. And yet it seems impossible to deny the ease with which City won the title weakened De Bruyne’s case.
None of this is to suggest Salah didn’t deserve to win. Of course he did. Then again, so did De Bruyne.