Just a year after getting only two votes from the journos, Suarez won this year’s award with some ease.
Twelve months ago, the Football Writers’ Association opened their Player of the Year voting just hours after Liverpool’s Luis Suarez attempted to take a chunk out of Branislav Ivanovic’s arm. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t do too well in the poll, reportedly nabbing just two votes from the 400-or-so journalists who get a ballot.
Fast forward a year and Suarez picked up over half the votes cast, 52 per cent, to win this year’s award with some room to spare. The stats speak for themselves (30 goals in 35 games, plus 14 assists) but the Football Writers’ Award is also intended to take behaviour into account and the way Suarez has reformed his public image since that incident at Chelsea is almost as remarkable as his play on the pitch.
His fellow pros voted for him to be Player of the Year last week so he joins the last two winners, Gareth Bale and Robin van Persie, as players who picked up both gongs in the same season.
Suarez’ team-mate Steven Gerrard was second in the voting, with Manchester City’s Yaya Toure third.
