{"id":618116,"date":"2022-09-23T15:13:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T19:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=618116"},"modified":"2022-09-23T15:15:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T19:15:41","slug":"saka-england-mens-player-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/09\/23\/saka-england-mens-player-of-year\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Outstanding\u2019 Arsenal Star Voted England Men\u2019s Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/09\/20\/ethan-nwaneri-interest\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal<\/a> star Bukayo Saka, who has previously been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11670\/12571866\/steven-gerrard-bukayo-saka-will-have-to-learn-to-toughen-up-after-arsenal-forward-asked-for-more-protection\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">described<\/a>\u00a0as an &#8216;outstanding talent&#8217; by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/09\/01\/arsenal-table-third-bid-for-douglas-luiz\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Aston Villa<\/a> manager and former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/09\/21\/manchester-united-jude-bellingham-competition\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Liverpool<\/a> captain Steven Gerrard, has been awarded the England men&#8217;s player of the year award.<\/p>\n<p>The fan-voted award saw the 21-year-old beat out England aces Declan Rice and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/14\/harry-kane-stay-at-spurs\/\" target=\"_self\">Harry Kane<\/a>, who came second and third respectively in the voting.<\/p>\n<p>In a message on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BukayoSaka87\/status\/1573287692254724096\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a> responding to winning the award, Saka said: &#8220;This is such a special honour for me and I\u2019m very grateful to everyone who voted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Bukayo Saka Named England Men&#8217;s Player of the Year<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Congratulations to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BukayoSaka87?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BukayoSaka87<\/a> \u2013 your England Men&#39;s Player of the Year connected by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@EE<\/a>! \ud83c\udfc6 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BazFbieuFS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/BazFbieuFS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; England (@England) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/England\/status\/1573266766947815424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 23, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Saka at 2020 European Championships<\/h2>\n<p>Although it ended in disappointment, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/18\/euro-2020-england-report-cards\/\" target=\"_self\">2020 European Championships<\/a> saw Bukayo Saka start his 2021\/22 campaign in excellent form.<\/p>\n<p>Absent from the starting eleven in England&#8217;s first two group stage games, Bukayo Saka seemed to just be making up the numbers in Gareth Southgate&#8217;s squad. However, the winger was finally given his chance in England&#8217;s final group stage game against the Czech Republic, and he grabbed it with both hands.<\/p>\n<p>From the right flank, Saka caused the Czech Republic problems throughout the entirety of the game and was even presented with Uefa&#8217;s Player of the Match award for his efforts.<\/p>\n<p>He then featured in three of England&#8217;s next four matches, and other than his penalty miss in the final, endured a near-perfect tournament, and was\u00a0undoubtedly, one of England&#8217;s most impressive players.<\/p>\n<p>He went on to make a total of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.englandfootball.com\/articles\/2022\/Sep\/23\/bukayo-saka-named-england-mens-senior-poty-for-2022-20222309\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">nine appearances<\/a> during that international season, bagging three goals and putting in yet another man of the match display in England&#8217;s 4-0 victory over Andorra on 5 September 2021.<\/p>\n<h2>Saka&#8217;s 2021\/22 Premier League Campaign<\/h2>\n<p>After missing that all-important penalty in the Euro 2020 final, many players, especially players of such a young age, would have found the following season incredibly difficult. In spite of that, Bukayo Saka shone for Arsenal and very nearly fired The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/04\/11\/top-four-reasons-arsenal-top-four\/\" target=\"_self\">Gunners to a fourth-place finish<\/a> in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>He registered eleven goals and seven assists in what was not just a very impressive individual season, but also Saka&#8217;s most productive season of his professional career so far.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that this came after such a difficult end to the summer preceding the Premier League&#8217;s commencement is a testament to the mental strength that Saka possesses and the confidence that he has in his own ability.<\/p>\n<p>This award is yet another milestone in what is likely to be a very successful career for the Arsenal winger.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal star Bukayo Saka, who has previously been described\u00a0as an &#8216;outstanding talent&#8217; by Aston Villa manager and former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, has been awarded the England men&#8217;s player of the year award. The fan-voted award saw the 21-year-old beat out England aces Declan Rice and Harry Kane, who came second and third respectively in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4305,"featured_media":618121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-arsenal","category-news"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}