Neymar becomes first ever Barcelona player to be named La Liga 'Player of the Month'

Neymar with his ‘player of the month’ award (Picture courtesy: FC Barcelona)

Neymar has been named the La Liga Player of the Month for November after his impressive performances in the month. Surprisingly, he also became the first ever Barcelona player to win the player of the month honour since the inception of the award a couple of years ago.

Neymar and Luis Suarez successfully took over the goal-scoring burden from Lionel Messi after the latter was forced into a spell away from action due to injury. In the month of November, Barcelona had three fixtures and the Brazilian started in all of them.

The first of the three matches was played against Villareal and the 23-year-old tore apart the ‘Yellow Submarine’ as he scored two goals out of the three with Suarez being the other scorer. The El Clasico loomed large after the International break that followed the first week of action, and the Selecao captain responded in style as he opened the scoring for the Blaugrana and added an assist to complete a massive 4-0 win for the Catalan club over their arch-rivals.

Real Sociedad were the next victims of the in-form Barcelona forward as he scored another two goals and assisted one to cap off a 4-0 win for Barcelona, who lie on top of the La Liga table with 21 points in nine matches with Real Madrid just a point behind them at second.

The most astonishing fact is that Neymar becomes the first Barcelona player to be awarded the Player of the month in the Spanish top flight. This is the third season since the individual awards were instituted and notably the Blaugrana won the La Liga in one of those two seasons which also included a historic second treble.

The trio of Messi, Suarez and Neymar plundered a combined 122 goals in the 2014-15 season in all competitions, with 81 of them coming in the La Liga. Neymar and Messi have been nominated for the Ballon d’Or award as well along with Cristiano Ronaldo and why none of the Blaugrana players were able to win the award is hard to decipher.

Year	Month	Award Winner	Team
2013	September	Diego Costa	Atletico Madrid
2013	October	Koke	Atletico Madrid
2013	November	Cristiano Ronaldo	Real Madrid
2013	December	Carlos Vela	Real Sociedad
2014	January	Ivan Rakitic	Sevilla
2014	February	Rafinha	Celta Vigo
2014	March	Keylor Navas	Levante
2014	April	Diego Godin	Atletico Madrid
2014	May	Diego Godin	Atletico Madrid
2014	September	Nolito	Celta Vigo
2014	October	Karim Benzema	Real Madrid
2014	November	Carlos Vela	Real Sociedad
2014	December	Luciano Vietto	Villareal
2015	January	Antoine Griezmann	Atletico Madrid
2015	February	Alberto Bueno	Rayo Vallecano
2015	March	Vitolo	Sevilla
2015	April	Antoine Griezmann	Atletico Madrid
2015	May	Cristiano Ronaldo	Real Madrid
2015	September	Nolito	Celta Vigo
2015	October	Borja Baston	Eibar
2015	November	Neymar Jr.	Barcelona

Reports: Manchester United to submit £143.9 million bid for Neymar

The Brazilian forward has been continuously linked with a move to Manchester United as the Red Devils are in dire need of a creative entity in their team who can bring that extra excitement and zest in their gameplay.

Spanish publication Fichajes reports today that the Manchester-based club is set to submit a massive £143.9 million bid for the 23-year old in the January transfer window though it is doubtful that the Catalan club will accept the bid in January.

Neymar has been constantly linked with a move away from Spain following his alleged involvement in a tax fraud case. The Brazilian’s father had publically stated that Neymar could be forced to be moved out if the Spanish authorities continued to pursue the investigations.