When this international break is over, the club season will be entering the home straight and honours will be decided.

Similarly, it would seem the destination of the top individual honours in English football is also a simple formality.

Mohamed Salah is the top-scorer and top assist-provider in the Premier League’s best team.



His hopes of collecting the 2025 Ballon d’Or were probably extinguished by PSG but he seems a shoo-in for the domestic accolades.

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But when members of the Football Writers Association were originally asked to vote for the Footballer of the Year - the English game’s oldest individual award, first won by Sir Stanley Matthews in 1948 - they were asked to consider who ‘by precept and example’ had been the best player.

He has not been the most outstanding performer in English club football this season.

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