Carragher worthy of accolade - and England
By Alan Hansen
Last Updated: 2:29am GMT 12/03/2007
This is the time of year when players across the country cast their votes for the Professional Footballers' Player of the Year. I have chosen five candidates for the highest accolade you can receive from your peers. All have had exceptional seasons but two have been absolutely outstanding.
Jamie Carragher
Thumbs up: Jamie Carragher has had a fine season
There was a time, earlier in the season, when Jamie Carragher suffered a couple of poor games and began to doubt his own form. It was the same player who dominated in their most recent games against Manchester United and Barcelona, a man who is at the pinnacle of his career.
Carragher has flourished because he has worked on his own best attributes; he is neither the quickest defender in the Premiership and nor is he the best on the ball. But when it comes to positional play, making a tackle or aerial prowess, he has sometimes been in a class of his own. With England facing an absolutely critical European Championship qualifier in Israel, the question is whether Steve McClaren picks him or Rio Ferdinand to play alongside John Terry. However, centre-back is one position where you cannot simply pick the two best players. You have to select the best partnership because, if you get it wrong, the consequences can be disastrous.
There is no better example of that than in last year's qualifier in Zagreb, when McClaren picked three centre-backs -Terry, Carragher and Ferdinand - all of whom were in form. They were all over the place against Croatia. You have to pick the two who are most comfortable with each other, but Carragher's time is now.
The choice of Gary Neville might surprise some people but in a Manchester United side that is going for the Treble, he has been the absolute model of reliability. There is not a better example of the will to win that has always characterised Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson than a captain who has had to fill the boots of Roy Keane. Maybe because he has been at Old Trafford for such a long time, maybe because he leads by example but his authority has never been questioned.
Choosing Michael Essien might also seem strange to some. If you judged him by yesterday's performance against Tottenham, Essien would not be in the top 1,000 in the country. He has been fabulously versatile for Chelsea this season, excelling at right-back or midfielder, but he has found that to play centre-half is a very demanding role. When they were coming towards the end of their careers, people suggested that Bryan Robson or Glenn Hoddle should drop back to play as a sweeper or even in the centre of defence. It proved not to be that simple.
What Essien has done is to perform every role Jose Mourinho has given him to the limit of his ability. He is a big star, on a lot of money and with a considerable reputation and there are many who would not have performed the jobs he has been asked to do. At his best for Chelsea, Essien has shown himself to be a true box-to-box midfielder, with tremendous power and variations.
There cannot, however, be a more frightening sight for a defender than seeing Cristiano Ronaldo running at you. At the start of the season, you would have said that Wayne Rooney was the single most important player to Manchester United; now it is unquestionably Ronaldo.
Because he looks so boyish, it sometimes comes as a surprise to see how tall and strong he is - he is 6ft 1in - and far tougher, physically and mentally, than many realise. He is statistically the most fouled player in the Premiership and, if you count how few games he has missed with injury, it tells its own story.
From the moment he came to Old Trafford, it was clear Ronaldo would become a major star, but you couldn't have said the same about Didier Drogba. He seemed a striker who lacked the necessary touch and technique in front of goal and at his age - he was 29 yesterday - it seemed hard to imagine he would turn it round.
Drogba was always strong - it is like having an extra defender when Chelsea defend set-pieces - but from nowhere he has discovered a wonderful touch that time and again has rescued Chelsea single-handedly.
That he has had so little support from Andrei Shevchenko makes his achievement even more remarkable. Can you imagine what Drogba and Chelsea might have achieved if he had a Kenny Dalglish or an Eric Cantona alongside him?
It is because he has done so much unsupported that would just give Drogba the edge over Ronaldo for my vote. You could take Ronaldo out of this Manchester United side and they would still function but Chelsea without Drogba would be lost.
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