Football

Fixing the Premier League awards: Declan Rice, Cole Palmer, Dominic Solanke, plus teams of the season and more

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6m ago

May 10, 2024 / 3245 Views

Evan Walker

England's game is America's plaything. And look, as an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting System, I ain't complaining about the influx of eyeballs and cash from across the Atlantic. It does, however, feel like the Premier League is missing out on some of the finer aspects of US sports.

We're talking about award season folks. It is not necessarily that football is short of individual garlands come the spring. They are just so remorselessly samey and safe. Three major prizes for the player of the year. Two young player of the year garlands that Hans Moleman has only recently aged out of. One meagre team of the year. A Hall of Fame that still hasn't filled itself with its most obvious members.

Does it matter that there aren't more prizes to celebrate the best of what is a very talented collection of footballers? Not really, but it is equally something of a pity that Luka Modric can spend four years enchanting England without picking up a league-wide award. That might not be the most embarrassing aspect of the 2010s for the United Kingdom, but do we really need more reasons to collectively look at our feet whenever we venture to the continent? We ought to be able to hold our head up high and say yes, we gave Modric three All Premier League Second XIs and that was enough.

Anyway, if you can't tell by now, we're cribbing some awards from American Sports and applying them to the Premier League. Read on. It'll be fun:

Player of the season: Declan Rice

You still have to have the classics though, even if it is curious that the Premier League felt compelled to shortlist their player of the season to a mere eight candidates. All the more so when that means that the likes of Rodri and Bukayo Saka don't make the cut. Football Writers' Association winner Phil Foden did and he has long seemed one of the front runners for the prize along with Declan Rice, whose transformative impact on Arsenal's defense and proclivity for clutch goals at the other end makes him the choice of this column.

Young player of the season: Destiny Udogie

The award that never quite seems to work. Saka, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden are all nominated for the Premier Lea league's young player of the season. They're a bit... old, though, aren't they? That may only be due to the sheer weight of games they have played but it still seems perverse that those with over 100 top flight matches are being judged against ingénues. A quick change of eligibility criteria addresses this, limiting the award to those who are 21 at the end of the season. Do so and the winner is obvious, Tottenham's marvellous young left back Destiny Udogie.

Rookie of the season: Cole Palmer

And now I realize that I've forced criteria that mean I can't give Cole Palmer the prize he obviously deserves. No matter, I'll make another. When I asked for suggestions for any other awards you'd like to see in this brave new world many of you said signing of the season. Yuck, let's please not glorify the excesses of the summer months any more than we must for web traffic.

However we can open up a bit of a window for this sort of prize in a Premier League rookie, though we'll play fast and loose with that definition so that we can fit in those who might have got developmental minutes the previous year but have only really established themselves this. Set the threshold at any player with under 1,000 minutes played before the previous season and your winner is obvious. It's Palmer.

Defensive player of the season: Gabriel

Because center backs never win the Ballon d'Or... yes I appreciate that I picked a player of the year who many would call a DM but it's his seven goals and nine assists that make Rice my number one in the Premier League. In terms of purely defending, it has to be the man who epitomises both Arsenal's rise to be the best backline in the land: Gabriel.

Most improved player of the season: Dominic Solanke

A bit of a fiddly one this. Amadou Onana has come on leaps and bounds under Sean Dyche but would we be over-indexing the natural progression many players make in year two of the Premier League? Brennan Johnson is putting up expected goals and chances like he didn't last season but that hot streak in a Nottingham Forest shirt makes it a bit hard to celebrate two more goal contributions. Dominic Solanke seems the best option, a solid forward in 2022-23 who has now taken the leap to being seriously and credibly linked with the biggest clubs across the land.

Bench player of the season: Scott McTominay

Cribbing from the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year, we're looking for someone who provides a lot of big time output but, if the history of winners is anything to go on, may not be that valuable a starter for a winning team. Scott McTominay, this prize could be named after you.

Manager of the season: Unai Emery

All due respect to Pep Guardiola and Sean Dyche but this winner has to come from the Basque country. Andoni Iraola has turned Bournemouth into a serious Premier League outfit, Mikel Arteta has turned Arsenal into a very serious European outfit but Unai Emery, in spite of a late season wobble, had Aston Villa briefly believing they might be title contenders.

Executive team of the season: Brighton

Not all awards will be sexy, the sort we can power rank throughout the season to plug some editorial gaps. At some stage you have to celebrate the guys who have made loads of money for their team. Congratulations Brighton and Hove Albion.

Game of the season: Chelsea 4, Man United 3

Happily we're doing this for the Premier League, the world's vibesiest sporting competition. Its best game of the season doesn't need to be a masterclass of tactics, coaches and players reacting on the fly to deliver football at its best. We just need as much nonsense as possible. So clearly this was going to involve two or more of Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United. Happily for us the latter duo delivered a 4-3 of such brazen stupidity on April 5 that it deserves its own wing in the Hall of Fame.

Teams of the season

Let's keep this brief. Ben White's been robbed (by me) but Kyle Walker is just so important for Man City. Top left backs are hard to find. I'm sorry Pascal Gross, I really wanted to have you at least one team higher. And yes, if we're doing multiple teams of the season we are at least caving to English tradition in one aspect. They're all playing 4-4-2.

All PL First XI: Alisson; Kyle Walker, William Saliba, Gabriel, Destiny Udogie; Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Rodri, Phil Foden; Erling Haaland, Ollie Watkins

All PL Second XI: Emiliano Martinez; Ben White, Ruben Dias, Virgil van Dijk, Antonee Robinson; Cole Palmer, Martin Odegaard, Alexis Mac Allister, Heung-min Son; Dominic Solanke, Alexander Isak

All PL Third XI: David Raya; Pedro Porro, Jarrad Branthwaite, Joachim Andersen, Josko Gvardiol; Bernardo Silva, Pascal Gross, Bruno Fernandes, Anthony Gordon; Jarrod Bowen, Kai Havertz

Oh you thought we were done there. Oh no! What the people really want is an All defense XI, celebrating the most industrious of center forwards and the full backs who actually defend.

All PL Defense XI: Emiliano Martinez; Kyle Walker, William Saliba, Gabriel, Josko Gvardiol; Bukayo Saka, Rodri, Declan Rice, Conor Gallagher; Julian Alvarez, Neal Maupay

And finally an All Rookie XI, where we're going to play a bit looser with positioning. Yes I know Joao Gomes signed in January 2023. Check the minutes!

All PL Rookie XI: Guglielmo Vicario; Teden Mengie, Micky van de Ven, Pau Torres, Destiny Udogie; Cole Palmer, Joao Gomes, Mohamed Kudus, Jeremy Doku; Carlton Morris, Nicolas Jackson