Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard have come second and third respectively in the voting for the 75th annual Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award.
Manchester City’s Erling Haaland came out on top after polling 82% of the vote; the biggest margin since in the Premier League era.
Haaland, who moved to the Etihad from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, broke the scoring record for a Premier League season when he netted his 35th goal against West Ham last week. He still has four games remaining to extend his remarkable tally.
Saka and Odegaard have neatly shared 29 goals and 29 assists between them and have been a driving force behind Arsenal’s impressive form. In March, they were named as Young Player of the Year and Player of the Year at the London Football Awards.
Whether the Arsenal duo’s performances lead to a first league title in 19 years remains to be seen. The Gunners currently trail City by a point with three games of the campaign remaining.
Chelsea dominated the women’s award with Sam Kerr topping the vote and Lauren James coming third. Aston Villa’s Rachel Daly placed second.
I find Haaland a boring footballer.
Messi is heavenly to watch. Ronaldo imperious. Mbappe exciting. Neymar inventive.
Haaland just seems to scuff shots into the goal. He’s got a really ugly style and runs like a mental case.
I’m not into him.
Jealousy makes you nasty fam.
I gave Ronaldo praise.
Not sure it’s jealousy.
Just don’t like his style.
There’s no poetry.
He gets the job done better than anybody. That’s all that matters
No it isn’t. That award would be the “Goalscorer of the Year” award. We have it already a the golden boot.
Defenders or goalies never win. I think they should start having categories like at the Oscars. Goalie, defence, midfield, attack, manager, team etc.
😄
Well deserved. What a season they have given us!!
Kind of mad to think that our overall goal tally is 84 and 58 of them have had something to do with Saka or Odegaard.
And yes pedants, I am aware that some goals may have combined both of them. But I’m pushing a narrative here so shut the hell up.
very impressive but for the record, this season
Saka has 14 goals and 11 assists, MO 15 goals +8 assists ,
a total of 48 contributions in all competitions
by the way Arsenal have 93 goals in all competitions so it’s 51% contribution
I’m not good at maths 🙃
Im confused. Is this wrong…?
“Saka and Odegaard have neatly shared 29 goals and 29 assists between them.”
Yes 29 goals, but 19 assists, according to BBC sport and transfermarket, do blog is wrong
This is not how it works.
If Saka assists MØ it would count as a single goal contribution to the total of 84. So it would be less than 58 out of 84
I agree.
Fantastic news, just can’t believe Martinelli is not up there? Or is he on any of these rankings but just below these two?
However I do appreciate that it is hard to do the rankings considering half of our team are kids and absolutely fantastic, Saliba, Martinelli, Saka, Ödegaard the list goes on…
How can they not give it to Haaland, it’s a remarkable feat taken as a stand alone performance. But in reality and through no fault of the player, the award is effectively being given to the oil rich, questionable regime, financing man citys inexorable blitzkrieg through British and European football. Make no mistake, we are not a poor club by any means and 99.9% of world football would have no sympathy at all for this point of view… But the achievement of Haaland is tainted and the parameters by which he is judged are skewed, due to the ridiculousness of… Read more »
‘Same old City, always cheating’
For me Odegaard has been the best player this league. A real joy to watch.
50 plus goals in a season is going to win it though, regardless of the financial allegations against the club he plays for.
I suspect Haaland will end up at Real Madrid – money and FFP means nothing to them.
Congratulations to Bendtner II
Wash your mouth out, he doesn’t have anywhere near the class of Super Nik. If he’d played in this City team he’d have bagged a half-century of goals by now.
TGSTEL
Saka wins the human player of the season. Fair play to whoever put that bit of AIHaaland into practice, it’s one good robot.
Fuck off.
Free kicks? No.
Luis Suarez type “not today” goals? No.
Flat track bully. Tell me I’m wrong.