Jordan Henderson wins 2019-2020 FWA Footballer of the Year award

After leading Liverpool to their maiden Premier League title in 30 years, Jordan Henderson has now been named as the FWA Footballer of the Year for 2019-20.

The Reds claimed the trophy with seven games to spare after a 30-year wait for their 19th top-flight championship. Playing one of his best seasons for the club, England midfielder Henderson was influential in leading his side in a campaign that was one-sided from the very beginning.

He is currently out due to a knee injury in early July but still managed to secure more than a quarter of the votes.

His team-mates Virgil Van Dijk and Sadio Mane were also in the race, along with Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne and United’s Marcus Rashford. Alisson Becker and Trent Alexander-Arnold also had some votes to their name.

Henderson, when asked about how he felt, said, 

“I’d like to say how appreciative I am of the support of those who voted for me and the Football Writers’ Association in general. You only have at the past winners of it, a number of whom I’ve been blessed to play with here at Liverpool, like Stevie (Gerrard), Luis (Suarez) and Mo (Salah) to know how prestigious it is.”

He went on to say that this award was because of a lot of other people who he owed it to and then went on to credit his team-mates for the most of it. “We’ve only achieved what we’ve achieved because every single member of our squad has been brilliant.”

The 30-year-old arrived from Sunderland in 2011 for £20 million, has scored four times in the 30 games he’s played in the league this season. Along with the Premier League this season, Henderson also led the Reds to lift the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup, following up the 2018-19 Champions League win.

Henderson also led by example off the pitch, being a key figure in the formation of the #PlayersTogether initiative that is a fund for Premier League players to raise money for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic. 

featured image credits- skysports.com