Asisat Oshoala, a 20-year-old forward for Liverpool and the Nigerian Women's National Team, has been named the first-ever Women's World Player of the Year by the BBC. 

The award, decided by a fan vote, is the first of this type to be hosted by a global broadcaster.

Oshoala beat out Brazil's Marta, Germany's Nadine Kessler and Scotland's Kim Little in the voting.

Is Dejan Lovren the best center back in the EPL?

No.

Now that we have that out of the way, a study from the CIES Football Observatory says that, according to their metrics, Lovren is the 12th-best center back in the world, and best in the Premier League. 

Raheem Sterling is another rising talent from the youth academies of QPR and Liverpool. At the young age of 20 years old, he could be on his way to bigger clubs come the beginning of next season.

The England International has refused to sign a £100,000-per-week contract offered to him during the current season, and is expected to tell Brendan Rodgers he would like to leave Anfield. This could come as a shock to Liverpool fans, as Rodgers was the manager who broke Sterling out of his shell and gave him the opportunity to be a regular starting winger.

FIFA sent this whizzing across my Twitter feed Monday morning:

Spain, Germany and Italy are all in the last four. Which country has the best #UCL semi-final pedigree? pic.twitter.com/EU3NWL0EeD

— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 4, 2015

Liverpool have had one of their most disappointing seasons in recent memory this year. Is this because expectations were raised far too high after last year's team looked like world beaters? Yes.

Is it also because the nostalgia about Steven Gerrard leaving has made anything other than a fairytale ending for the skipper a disappointment? Also yes.

Is it because Liverpool has been perpetually injury-wracked and therefore have no continuity or chemistry? Also yes.

The Daily Express declares this morning to all who will listen that Liverpool are CLOSE (their emphasis, not ours) to securing the services of Radamel Falcao for the princely sum of $50 million, funding any move by offloading FLOP (again, their emphasis) Mario Balotellit to Sampdoria.

Bas van Velzen’s Facebook page describes him as “a youtube who take free kicks in a weird way.” Now, he’s from the Netherlands, so you’ll have to excuse his poor English, as hilarious as “a youtube” might be. Beyond all of that is the latter half of the sentence: his assertion that he takes free kicks “in a weird way.” Now, we can’t be sure if he is being genuine, or genuinely sarcastic, because his free kicks are anything but weird. As a matter of fact, they’re absolutely amazing.  

Last week, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted a picture of himself on Instagram next to Liverpool’s iconic “You’ll Never Walk Alone” sign. Is this an indication that Johnson is a Scouser at heart?

Just last week I wrote about how Liverpool were on fire and Manchester United were the “crappest” team in the English Premier League. United are still so lacking in any distinct style that they border on unwatchable, but they were solid in Sunday’s 2-1 win at Anfield and deserve to be fourth in a deeply mediocre table.

Few games evoke a more visceral reaction than Liverpool vs. Man United. A fixture dating back more than 120 years, it’s a tried and tested recipe for creating endemic levels of anger, vitriol, bad losers and even worse winners. It’s why this Sunday’s BPL clash between the two kicks off at 1:30pm GMT, so everybody doesn’t have too much time to get overly beered-up (though, by God, they’ll try).

So The18 thought this the perfect opportunity to roll out our Top Five Most Hated Players in the history of Liverpool vs. Man United. In no particular order of loathsomeness: