Fulham midfielder

Clint Dempsey More

Clint Dempsey

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Fulham and U.S. national team star Clint Dempsey finished fourth in the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award voting that was announced Tuesday.Arsenal's Dutch forward Robin van Persie, who has 34 goals this season, won a "landslide victory," according to the English organization.Manchester United forward Wayne Rooney finished second, and teammate Paul Scholes was third.Considering ninth-place Fulham's modest 12-12-10 record, the lingering bias against American players and Dempsey's relative lack of established star power compared to many European counterparts, the fourth-place finish is a noteworthy accomplishment.Dempsey, 29, has been brilliant in 2011-12, scoring 22 goals in all competitions (a record for a U.S. player abroad), including 16 in Premier League play.The fact he often plays as a midfielder or in a withdrawn role for Fulham makes those statistics even more impressive.England's writers paid more attention than the players, however. The recently announced six-man list of finalists for the Professional Footballers' Association Players' Player of the Year award omitted Dempsey.The PFA begins balloting in January and requires all votes to be submitted before the end of March, meaning the four goals Dempsey scored from March 31 to April 9, when Fulham went 2-0-1, weren't counted.Van Persie won the PFA award as well, becoming the sixth player in the past decade to win both major English honors. The EPL also will name its official player of the season next month.In January, Dempsey was named the U.S. Soccer Federation's athlete of the year for the second time.