Liverpool’s Salah, Kirby named PFA players of the year

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has been named as the Professional Footballers’ Association player of the year for the 2017-18 season.The Egypt international saw off competition from the Manchester Citytrio of Kevin De Bruyne, Leroy Sane and David Silva to become the secondAfrican player to win the award after Riyad Mahrez of Leicester in2016. Tottenham’s Harry Kane came third, with De Bruyne second. Salah, who moved to Anfield from Roma last June for a club record fee of£36.9m, has scored 41 goals in his debut season as Jürgen Klopp’s sidehave reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.Salah was presented with the award at the Grosvenor Hotel in London onSunday evening, with City’s winger Sane voted as young player of theyear.“It’s an honour to win this award especially because it was voted for by the other players,” said Salah. “I would like to thank my teammates and everyone at the club for helping me to make this happen.”Asked what it meant to become the first Egyptian to win the award, hesaid: “Hopefully I’m not the last one. I’m very proud to win and I’veworked very hard.”Fran Kirby, who played in Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat in the first leg of theWomen’s Champions League semi-final on Sunday, won the women’s player ofthe year award. Bristol City’s Lauren Hemp was named young player ofthe year. The PFA’s Merit award went posthumously to Cyrille Regis, the formerWest Brom forward who died aged 59 in January. The award was recognitionof Regis’ pioneering role in changing attitudes towards blackfootballers in England.While not unexpected given his stunning debut season at Anfield, Salahfaced strong competition from the Belgium international De Bruyne, whohas been the standout player for the champions.Speaking after their 5-0 victory over Swansea on Sunday, ManchesterCity’s manager, Pep Guardiola, had backed his midfielder for the award.“If he doesn’t win, then congrats to the guy that wins,” he said. “But in my opinion there is no player better than him in terms of continuity, every three days, competitions, three days. “Maybe the numbers say someone is better than him but this season therehas been no one better than him. That’s my opinion but players can haveanother one. But in the end, in the summertime, we will be at home beingchampions.”Sane hails ‘best coach’ GuardiolaManchester City playmaker Leroy Sane has hailed Pep Guardiola as the“best coach in the world”, crediting the manager for improving theteam’s overall performance which culminated in their Premier Leaguetriumph this season. German Sane has been key to City’s title charge this campaign, with the 22-year-old scoring nine goals and providing 12 assists which also earned him the PFA’s Young Player of the Year award.“He is, for me, the best coach in the world,” Sane told Sky Sports of Guardiola. “Everyone can see that we’ve improved a lot and have taken the nextstep. He always tries to get the best and show us the way to play goodfootball.”Sane, who joined City in 2016, also described the team as “perfect” and credited their efforts in helping him win the award.“I’m really grateful because the team is perfect,” Sane added. “They are all really good guys and we work really hard.“To play with fantastic players like we have in our team is great.Thankfully the club gave me the chance to do it and I enjoy it a lot.”