Five Liverpool Players Nominated for top Champions League Honours

Liverpool look likely to end the summer transfer window with pretty much the squad they started it with. While not everyone will be happy about that, today—a deadline day where Liverpool did nothing—brought with it a reminder of just how good the current squad is.

That’s because UEFA announced the finalists for Champions League defender, midfielder, forward, and goalkeeper of the season—in fact, amongst the twelve total nominees across the awards, four are Liverpool players, with two at the back to go with one at each other positional group.

Starting in defence we have Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold both nominated along with Matthijs de Ligt, and one would expect Van Dijk to be the clear favourite to take the award given his status as current frontrunner for the Ballon d’Or.

Then, in midfield, some may be surprised to find Jordan Henderson one of three finalists along with Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen and Ajax’s Frenkie de Jong, highlighting the importance of Liverpool’s captain in winning their sixth European Cup.

And amongst the forwards, it’s no real surprise to see Sadio Mané up for top honours after the season he had—but he’ll have a tough go of it against Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo given they carry the kind of name recognition that amounts incumbent status.

Addendum: As Muriwo pointed out to us in the comments, Alisson Becker was also nominated as goalkeeper of the season. Because obviously he was—and more than that it’s pretty clear that he, like Van Dijk, should be the frontrunner.