Top 5 English players of 2016: Who has been the best?

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Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Sunderland and West Ham players feature among HITC Sports list of the top 5 English players of 2016.

2016 has been a mixed year for English footballers. Wayne Rooney has received a hard time once more, Joe Hart was ousted from Manchester City by Pep Guardiola and Jack Wilshere was loaned out to Bournemouth. Conversely, it was an exceptional year for English talents such as Jamie Vardy, Danny Drinkwater and Danny Simpson who won a shock Premier League title at Leicester City and also reached the knockout stages of the Champions League.

It may therefore be deemed a little harsh that no Leicester City player features among our top 5 English players of 2016. Had this been a top seven or eight, at least two Foxes probably would have made the cut, but as it is, it’s difficult to pick out a Leicester star who has performed better over the course of all 12 months of 2016 than the 5 men featured here.

Other notable candidates who may consider themselves unfortunate not to feature include Danny Rose, Eric Dier, Jordan Henderson and Tom Heaton. In the interest of fairness, whilst we have compiled our own top 5, the poll at the end of this article allows readers to vote for a wider range of candidates as the number one English player of 2016. Here are our top 5:

Tottenham’s Harry Kane wins the 2015/16 Premier League Golden Boot

Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)

The Premier League Golden Boot winner for 2015/16, Harry Kane may have had a miserable Euro 2016, but then so too did most of the England team, and that does not detract from the centre-forwards accomplishments at club level. The 23-year-old scored more than 25 goals in 2016 for a Tottenham team which desperately struggles for goals in his absence.

Kane won the Premier League Player of the Month award once in 2016 and made the 2015/16 PFA Team of the Year. Often described as an ‘old-fashioned centre-forward’, Kane has proved those who suggested he may be a one-season-wonder very wrong, and is now rightly considered alongside the likes of Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as one of the best strikers in the Premier League.

Adam Lallana (Liverpool)

Liverpool midfielder Adam Lallana in action for England

It would be all too easy to forget Adam Lallana when compiling a list of this ilk, but it is important that his performances are not overlooked. As with Kane at Tottenham, Liverpool are a far, far superior team when Lallana is on the pitch. A real talisman at Southampton, the midfielder looked steady but not spectacular under Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool, but has been a different animal since working with Jurgen Klopp.

Tireless and technically gifted, he is a fantastic driving force for the Reds and has been pivotal to the pressing style and quick movement of the ball Klopp has looked to implement at Anfield. Despite his impressive performances, one aspect of the Englishman’s game which was questioned at times last season was his lack of goal scoring prowess, as he scored just 7 goals in 60 appearances for club and country during 2015/16. It is something the Liverpool man has worked hard on though, and it is beginning to tell; he has scored 9 goals in 18 games already this season.

Jermain Defoe (Sunderland)

Prolific Sunderland striker Jermain Defoe

The only man to feature here who hasn’t won an England cap during 2016, Jermain Defoe’s achievements in a struggling Sunderland side are terrific. A prolific scorer throughout his career, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the former Tottenham man is still banging them in, but the fact that he recorded his second best ever Premier League tally (15 goals) last season at the age of 34 in a Sunderland team which narrowly avoided relegation says it all.

Both this season and last, Sunderland would surely have no chance of survival without Defoe. Lethal in front of goal, he has bagged 8 goals in 14 already this season, and could even surpass last seasons goals tally on current form.

He has scored a total of 19 goals in 2016, and now looks to have formed an effective strike partnership with big man Victor Anichebe. All in all, swapping the former England international for Jozy Altidore may go down as one of the finest pieces of business ever conducted by a Premier League club.

Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur)

Dele Alli celebrates scoring for Tottenham

It has been a slow start to the 2016/17 season for Dele Alli, who was quite simply outstanding in his debut season in the Premier League. Having joined Tottenham from MK Dons, the now 20-year-old Alli made the step up from League One to the Premier League look easy, scoring 10 goals in 33 league games for Spurs from an advanced midfield position and walking into the England team.

Named the PFA Young Player of the Year for 2015/16 and making the PFA Team of the Year, Alli now has to deal with the weight of expectation that follows such an impressive campaign. He may have struggled to do that so far, but Spurs are unlikely to lose faith in the youngster anytime soon, and he is still arguably the best young English player in the country.

Michail Antonio (West Ham United)

West Ham’s Michail Antonio training with England

The omission of Jamie Vardy is likely to ruffle a few feathers among Leicester City supporters, and understandably so, but the fact is that Michail Antonio has scored 15 goals in 2016, just 5 fewer than Vardy, and that is despite Antonio spending much of 2016 playing as a right-back. The former non-league star who became one of the most feared wingers in the Championship with Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest joined West Ham for £7 million in 2015.

He very quickly became a favourite among Hammers fans, for his likeable character, goal scoring prowess and great determination. As mentioned previously, Slaven Bilic routinely played Antonio as a right-back, an unnatural role for the 26-year-old, and more recently even as a striker, but when deployed as a winger he can be a real menace to the opposition. One could make a very good argument that Antonio ranks above Payet as West Ham’s best player during the 2016/17 season so far.

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