Gary Neville makes surprising admission about Fred for Manchester United's Player of the Year award

28.05.2022 - 17:59 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Gary Neville has named Fred as a potential candidate to be named Manchester United's Player of the Year.

David de Gea and Cristiano Ronaldo are the favourites to win the award this season. De Gea's future at Old Trafford was surrounded by uncertainty last season, but he emphatically bounced back this term to make the No.1 spot his own again.

De Gea started in the maximum of United's 38 Premier League games this season. The Spaniard was wonderfully consistent between the sticks, despite his teammates ahead of him regularly disappointing. De Gea was even named the Premier League's Player of the Month in January, while Ronaldo, who finished the season as United's top goalscorer, won that award twice this term.

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Although the award seems a two-way contest between Cristiano Ronaldo and De Gea and Neville prefers the latter for the personal accolade, the United legend also named Fred as a possible candidate, as he explained to the club's in-house media,

“How many times has David De Gea won it since Sir Alex left? I’m going to go for De Gea, to be honest with you," Neville said.

"The only other two I could think of would be Fred and Ronaldo. We’d be in dire straits without Ronaldo’s goals but I think, without De Gea, we’d be dead! I could say Ronaldo… Who’s the favourite, is it Ronaldo? I’d go De Gea, Ronaldo, then Fred, in that order.”

Robson agreed with Neville on the matter and he explained why De Gea would be a worthy winner of the award.

“I’d give David the nod. I think there were only two in the running for me – David and Cristiano. But I’d just give it to David because I think, particularly in mid-season, he was