Robin van Persie Named Football Writers' Player of the Year

Robin van Persie has been again named the player of the season, this time by the Football Writers' Association. In a poll of around the 400 journalists who write about football for newspapers and magazines, van Persie's victory was apparently a landslide, with Wayne Rooney a distant 2nd. Paul Scholes (!) finished 3rd, while Clint Dempsey finished 4th, with the chairman of the FWA, Steve Bates of the People, saying

Robin was the overwhelming choice of our members this season and deservedly so after a magnificent campaign for Arsenal.

The quality of his goals, attacking movement and consistency in a turbulent season for the Gunners has been eye-catching.

The considerable size of his majority in the votes cast by our members reflected the general view that he has been the season's most outstanding individual performer.

van Persie becomes the 6th Arsenal player to win the award, after Joe Mercer, Frank McLintock, Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry, and the 3rd Arsenal player to win both the PFA Player of the Year and the FWA Player of the Year, with Bergkamp and Henry being the other two to do so.