GLEN JOHNSON believes Lucas Leiva has been Liverpool’s player of the season, despite an up and down campaign at Anfield.

The Reds’ 2-0 defeat to Tottenham on Sunday afternoon leaves Kenny Dalglish’s men sixth in the Premier League table, and facing the prospect of a first season without European football since 1999/2000.

And Johnson, whose own form has improved markedly since the arrival of Dalglish as manager in January, believes midfielder Lucas has been the club’s standout performer throughout the course of the year.

“I would say Lucas,” said Johnson when asked who his player of the season is in this week’s LFC Weekly. “There were rumours at the start of the season that Liverpool were going to sell him but the way he’s performed just shows you how quickly things can change in football.

“At the minute he’s probably one of the first names in the starting 11. He’s won the fans over now for sure, so fair play to him. I’m obviously very pleased for him and his family. He deserves the recognition.”

Johnson, who has flourished since being asked to fill in at left-back by Dalglish, believes the manner in which the Reds have performed under the Scot shows the character which exists within the squad.

Liverpool were 13th in the table when Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson, but are now guaranteed a top six finish - an improvement on last season’s seventh place.

Johnson added: “People talk about ifs, buts and maybes and if we had had this form at the start, we would have been challenging for the league. But obviously you could say ‘what if’ about most things.

“Coming up to Christmas we were nearer the bottom of the league than the top and that’s obviously crazy. If somebody had told you that at the start of the season you’d have just laughed about it. But the lads have shown great character, everyone’s stuck together and we’ve pulled it around.

“It’s definitely been a league of two halves for us. It’s very frustrating because you can’t help but reflect on the fact that if we’d have made a better start and picked up points against teams that we should have beaten we would have been fighting for the Champions League spots.

“The results at the start…well, there were some shockers in there. But when you look at where we are now we know that even if we had picked up a couple more wins we could have been very close.

“That’s the frustration.”