At the moment, who would be your top 3 players of the year, and your most improved player? Jack Payne Flitney Kedwell Most improved- Richards
You have identified four prime candidates but a player of the year accolade is harder than a player of the season because you have to give weight to two separate seasons. The first half of the year must give credit to Akinfenwa, McDonald and Lawrence as the top candidates. The second half would be led by Flitney, Jackman and Payne. Payne made good contributions in both halves but for me, despite his strengths he is still only as good as he was in 9/10 so really he has to be a slight disappointment. Flitney has been hugely reliable and if he had been at the club since January, the Gills might well be playing in League 1 now but he wasn't so he misses out. Kedwell is a likeable workhorse but his goal output (excluding penalties) is just too poor. Jackman's performances before September were too modest to be a contender. It is hard to argue against Richards as the most improved player. At the start of the year he was error prone but the errors seem to have drifted away much to his credit. Nevertheless Rooney has improved a lot and if he had not shot himself in the foot he might have continued to improve over the last few weeks. I reckon Jackman and Flitney are on course to battle it out for player of the season. Player of 2011 for me would probably be McDonald.