Mohamed Salah: Liverpool forward voted PFA Player of the Year 2017-18

Salah scooped the award after a historic season

MOHAMED Salah has won the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award for 2017-18.

The Liverpool forward, 25, beat Kevin de Bruyne, Harry Kane, Leroy Sane, David Silva and David de Gea in the vote by his fellow players.

Manchester City’s Sane won the young player prize, while Chelsea’s Fran Kirby won the Women’s Player of the Year award.

Bristol City’s Lauren Hemp was named Women’s Young Player of the Year.

“It’s an honour and especially as it’s voted by the players. I am happy and proud,” Salah said.

“I didn’t have my chance at Chelsea. It was clear I would return and show everyone my football. I think I left and came back a different person, man and player.”

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said he was “happy to have the opportunity” of being Salah’s manager and added it was an “unbelievable honour” to win the award.

“It’s been a fantastic ride but we still have games to go,” Klopp said. “But please grab the trophy and come home. We play on Tuesday!”

Former West Brom and England forward Cyrille Regis, who died in January at the age of 59, was honoured with the PFA’s merit award during the ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Former England captain Casey Stoney, who retired from football this year, picked up the PFA Special Achievement award.

‘Everything he touches goes in the net’

Salah has scored 31 goals in 33 Premier League games for Klopp’s free-scoring Liverpool side and leads the race for the golden boot.

The Egypt international’s 31st league goal against West Brom on Saturday took him alongside Alan Shearer, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez, who share the record for a 38-game season.

He scored in both legs of Liverpool’s 5-1 aggregate victory over Manchester City in the Champions League quarter-finals, as well as four goals in their league victory over Watford in March.

The £34m summer signing from Roma, is just the fifth player to register more than 40 goal involvements in a single Premier League season (31 goals, nine assists).

Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer: “Everything he touches seems to go in the back of the net and he is having one of those seasons where you go out on the pitch not hoping you are going to score, but knowing you will. As a striker, I know that it is a great feeling to have.”

BBC Sport pundit Rachel Brown-Finnis: “Salah was supposedly over-priced when Liverpool paid £36.9m for him last summer but you could triple that fee and no-one would bat an eyelid – not that they would consider selling him now.”

BBC Sport pundit Dion Dublin: “To do what Salah has done in his first season at Liverpool is incredible. He has scored so many goals but he is also unselfish – he will always pick the best option even if that means he doesn’t score but the team does.”