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Arsenal: PFA Player Of The Year Should Already Be Won
By Josh Sippie
The PFA Player of the year award has avoided Arsenal since the days of Robin van Persie, but it may be a small consolation on this year.
It seems like every year we all gather together, see that Arsenal has Alexis Sanchez on the ballot for PFA Player of the Year, and accept that no matter what the Chilean does, he won’t win it. Whether it’s because the club can’t match his level of play or because the Gunners yet again didn’t win the title, it always eludes him.
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Yet every year, statistically and impactingly (that’s a word now) speaking, Alexis is hands down the best player in the league. That stretches all the way back to 2014/15, his first year with the club. Far and away out-performing Eden Hazard, Alexis was robbed of the award because it never goes to newcomers.
Odd.
The following year, Alexis missed out to Riyad Mahrez while yet again statistically outdoing him.
This year, the stage is set for something similar. For three years in a row now, no single player has done more for his club than Alexis has done for Arsenal. He is everything to them and proves year in and year out that he is one of the best in the world.
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The stats are in Alexis’s favor yet again, with only one man contributing to more goals. Eden Hazard has contributed to 19 (14 goals, five assists). Zlatan Ibrahimovic has 22 (17 goals, five assists). Plus he is a newcomer.
Harry Kane is missing considerable time to injury but has managed 23 (19 goals, four assists). Romelu Lukaku will never win at Everton, even if he does have 29 (23 goals and six assists).
N’Golo Kante has been great, but the last time the PFA Player of the Year didn’t go to a goal producer, it was John Terry in 2004/5. Has Kante really been that good?
Meanwhile, Alexis is over here with 27 goals created (19 goals, eight assists) on a sinking team with very little help around him. And while he is second to Lukaku’s tally, clearly a team’s spot on the table is a factor and the Gunner’s still have hopes of recovering as the season winds down.
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Plus, Lukaku is a target man. A fantastic one, at that, but he doesn’t have the influence Alexis does on the match as a whole. Nor does he have the work rate and the undying desire to succeed. There’s no stat for that, but if there, Alexis would be tops in the world.