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Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne was named the Premier League Player of the Season today, after a sensational year in which the Belgian finished with the most direct goal contributions in the league.
De Bruyne beat competition from Liverpool trio Jordan Henderson, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Sadio Mane to win the award. Leicester City's Jamie Vardy and Southampton's Danny Ings were also nominated for the accolade.
De Bruyne finished the season with 13 goals and 20 assists in the Premier League, equalling Thierry Henry's long-standing record for the most assists in a single Premier League season.
However, that wasn't enough to propel Manchester City to a hat-trick of Premier League titles, as Pep Guardiola's men finished 18 points behind champions Liverpool.
Liverpool skipper Henderson was earlier announced as the Football Writers' Association's Football of the Year, while Alexander-Arnold won the Premier League Young Player of the Year award.
Kevin De Bruyne gets just reward for a stellar season
De Bruyne finished the 2019-20 Premier League season having created 30 more chances than any other player in the league. In the 35 games that he played in the league this season, De Bruyne managed to create 136 chances for his team-mates, of which 33 were classified as big chances.
In contrast to Kevin De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold had 13 assists in the Premier League, along with being part of the best defence in the division. The Liverpool youngster broke his own record for most assists in a single campaign, while also winning the Premier League.
De Bruyne's win here means that this is the third season in a row that the award has been given to a player from outside the league champions. In the last two years, when Manchester City won the Premier League, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk won the award for their contributions to Liverpool's success in recent years.
City's season came to an eventually disappointing end, but it was largely kept afloat by the brilliance of Kevin De Bruyne, whose energy and unrivalled technical ability won several games for City on their own.
The Cityzens were last night knocked out of the UEFA Champions League by Lyon, which meant that their only trophy this season was the Carabao Cup.
This personal achievement might hardly compensate for the lack of the big trophy this season, but nonetheless, it was nothing less than Kevin De Bruyne deserved.
