Amidst the protests and ‘incident’ surrounding last night’s Player of the Year Awards, there were actually gongs handed out.
Portuguese winger Daniel Candeias won POTY while Colombian striker Alfredo Morelos won the young equivalent.
Given recent results and the chaos surrounding the club at present the awards were a bit embarrassing at best, but if we put the positive slant on it both awards were probably about as deserved as they could be.
While others excelled during late January-early March, the 30-year old flanker has been extremely consistent throughout the season – he had a slight lull last autumn, then dipped after the Ibrox Old Firm, but by and large Candeias is a reasonably justified winner of the award, even if the season’s dips and troughs overall make such an award harder than usual to allocate.
At one point we felt like we had a veritable feast of candidates, from the brilliant Jamie Murphy, to the industrious Greg Docherty, to the free-scoring Josh Windass – that late winter and early spring period definitely skewed thinking.
Over the course of the whole season, left back Declan John was also a serious contender – by no means Arthur Numan, but a fine acquisition who has done the shirt proud and didn’t let his form dip after winning a deal. He’s even got back into the Welsh squad, which says a lot.
But overall we have no huge quarrel with Candeias – he works hard in attack and defence, and is as valid a winner as anyone.
As for YPOTY? Morelos really has struggled this calendar year. Ever since the supposed Chinese interest then the new deal the lad has just not done it – his goals have dried up and he’s scored just three times in the league since late January, none of which have been against a top six side. His purple patch was late October till end of January and while his overall tally probably justifies the award, if we take into account his 10-match draught last year, he’s definitely not the sensation we began to think he was.
That all said, the sparse competition probably helped him a lot.
Overall, another disappointing season at Ibrox and we really hope something changes soon.
Broxi Bear!!
The POTYA will be remembered about as much as the season ! Not a good decision to hold this in so soon after that garbage performance …. Murty is done .. If the Real Rangers fans think not buying the season books is the answer then they are wrong I'm sorry it would only put off any potential manager we need the investment of our supporters . The board have demonstrated poor no really awful judgement on the Football side of things but off filed they are getting it right . The board are going nowhere as there is no alternative… Please lets get real ,, the only way forward for us is to get the right Manager It think Steven Gerrard could be a revolution at Ibrox . We need that kind of change… As I continue to say there is no alternative for f**k sake !!! Real Rangers Fans please come to the fore
BillB, I admire your fortitude but quite simply the present Board are totally dysfunctional and continue to denigrate Rangers supporters in every way possible. Just look at the diabolical comment from Johnston insisting "we are ahead of the curve".
The club are a shambles and this Board keep digging a big enough hole to bury our club.
Why on earth encourage more of the same by handing over even more cash for an even more horrible experience.
Steven Gerrard an under 18 coach as our next manager? NOT with my money. You go ahead.
Candeias is the only serious candidate for POTY with maybe the exception of Tavernier. Morelos has scored plenty but has been patchy and missed so many open goals. Foderingham, John and Windass have all done well by and large. The rest are either January signings (Murphy, Docherty, etc.), have hardly got a game (Cummings, Holt, etc.) or have been injured (Jack, Dorrans, McCrorie, etc.) or are just not good enough (Alves, Halliday, etc.)
Maybe for sheer entertainment value it should have been given to Carlos Pena. I'm glad he's coming back – let's face it you'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out then outside the tent pissing in! 🙂
"he works hard in attack and defence" what games have ibroxnoise been watching. Yes he might track back but he never tackles or if he does its half arsed. Embarrasing.
99% of the rest of the squad don't tackle either. And they don't work hard at either end of the pitch……
To be honest I don't think the poll is helpful. He got the award and that should be the end of it under the circumstances.
Danny Wilson???
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