The Bumper-Sized End of Season Edition
Tap…tap…tap… Is this thing on?
Ahem. Welcome one and all. I hope you’re all clad in your best frocks this afternoon, and, equally, that you won’t be spending the entire time swarmed around the punch bowl. *hic* Because I think you’ll find it quite empty. It’s award season, folks. The WFRF? End of Season bash. The most talked about event since the Wooten Courtney raffle last Sunday. Grab a flute of champagne from the many waiters dotted about the place- see if you can spot Robbie Keane in a penguin suit- and feel free to heckle at any point… Let’s give out some love.
Goal of the Season
Danny Rose vs. Arsenal (April 2010)
The bar was set pretty high from day one. BAE opened the season with the hum-dingiest of hum-dingers against The Scouse and we’ve been gorging on comparable fetes of net plundering ever since. Huddlestone’s pile-driver against Bolton; Kranjcar twanging one past Stoke; Bentley’s dubious free-kick in the bombing of Wigan. All bloody marvellous, all from the chaps in Lily-white. It’s one thing to have such an array of potential goal-scorers in your midst- nineteen in total- but something else altogether when their efforts alone make you grateful for the gift of sight. The winner, though, perhaps just for sheer impact more than anything, is the boy Danny. Debut. Thirty-yards from goal. First-time volley. Off-balance. Against the Enemy? Oooh, don’t mind if I do. Would a goal by any other Rose smell as sweet? I doubt it. Instant hero.
Honourable mentions:
Assou-Ekotto vs Liverpool (August 2009) Defoe vs Hull (August 2009) Modric vs Everton (February 2010) Modric vs Burnley (May 2010) Kranjcar vs Stoke (March 2010) Bentley vs Wigan (November 2009) Huddlestone vs Bolton (May 2010) Bale vs Chelsea (April 2010)
Most Improved Player of the Season
Gareth Bale
Southampton fans would probably argue that he was the cat’s pyjamas long before it finally dawned on us. Before we decided to throw bin-liners full of cash at them for his services only to plonk him on the bench and furrow our brows at his simian features and inability to finish on a winning side. It was only last season that a Saints blogger implored me to keep the faith with the Welsh wingstress: be patient, he said, and Bale will do the business. Well, we did. And he did. And how. If the fuse was smouldering away in the first half of the campaign- quietly hissing, occasionally showing sparks of life in the League Cup- then it set off a rocket at the turn of the year. His rise has been meteoric. Quite comfortably the player of 2010, he terrorised fullbacks on every outing. From Champions League winning Spaniards to relegation fodder, defenders have been left standing befuddled in his wake. Trying to tackle the thin air that used to be Gareth Bale. Bale. Bale.
Honourable mentions:
Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Jermain Defoe, Tom Huddlestone
Game of the Season
Man City vs Tottenham (May 2010)
For spectacle, drama and sense of history, there could be no other game that encapsulated our entire season in the course of ninety- minutes. Everything we’d heaped in up until then- the nine against Wigan, the NLD, beating Chelsea- all could’ve been footnotes in a another trying venture of underachieving had we not done a number on City. The game itself may’ve been as comfortable to watch as root canal work, but the joy at its resolution was one unlikely to be forgotten. For days afterwards the world was a better place; stars fell out of the sky, birds suddenly appeared. All thanks to the gawky loveliness of Peter Crouch and his well placed head. One night in Manchester. A million prayers answered. Glory be.
Honourable mentions:
Tottenham 9- 1 Wigan (November 2009), Tottenham 2-1 Arsenal (April 2010), Tottenham 2-1 Chelsea (April 2010) Tottenham 2-1 Liverpool (August 2009), Tottenham 3-0 Man City (December 2009)
Buy of the Season
Sebastien Bassong (Newcastle, £8 million)
Say whaaat? Surely Nicholas Kranjcar- at two and a half million- has to be the embodiment of bang for your buck. Agreed. But quietly going about his work, while the defence crumbled and rebuilt around him in the opening months, the young Cameroonian went out like an old pro. Strong, quick, intelligent on the ball; at twenty-three, Sebastien has the makings of a bona-fide star. Perhaps even enough of one to fill the King shaped hole which will eventually be left gaping in our backline in years to come.
Honourable mentions:
Niko Kranjcar (Portsmouth, £2.5 million) Eidur Gudjohnsen (on loan from Monaco) Peter Crouch (Portsmouth, £9 million)
Player of the Season
Michael Dawson and Heurelho Gomes
I ran this a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of mad love, then, for our World Cup bound stopper. And rightly so. By those semtiments, Gomes should win by a landslide. But it’s Dawson for my money. While the Brazilian’s unfathomable saves against The Arse probably kept us in the hunt, it’s Dawson who’s been the lifeblood of our final leg assault on that Champions League place. When we were looking for someone to turn to- a leader- who would drag us through those closing minutes of a narrow two-one lead- thumping his chest, snarling, pulling up his captain’s armband- Dawson was there to take bullets and see us home. Courageous, spirited, a winner of every ball in the air- he’s the real deal. Showing every bit of his form pre-2006. And then some. If he doesn’t go to South Africa- and, say Carragher does- I’m pulling that effigy of Tony Adams of out of the loft and slapping Capello’s face on it.
Honourable mentions:
Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon, Tom Huddlestone, Ledley King, Luka Modric, Jermain Defoe, Wilson Palacios…Harry Redknapp.
That’s it from me. Your thoughts, as ever, are more than welcome. Nay, encouraged.
Part two to follow…
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