Who will win the npower Championship Player of the Year Award 2012?

22 02 2012

As part of the annual Football League Awards hosted in March, this year containing 17 categories ranging from PFA Player in the Community Award, contested by Portsmouth’s Joel Ward, Noel Hunt of Reading and Millwall’s Tamika Mkandawire, to Best Matchday Programme, the three-man shortlist for the npower Championship Player of the Year Award has been put together.

Last year’s winner, Adel Taarabt, who was crowned on the back of Kevin Nolan’s 2010 successes and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake’s triumphant 2009, thanked voters – last year compromised of firstly fans voting online and then narrowed down to the top three and eventual winner by a select panel of judges: “I am really happy to be named the top player in the npower Championship. I had a difficult time at Spurs and going to QPR was a risk for me, but things have gone very well and hopefully, I will be back in the Premier League next season.”

With the winner being announced in March, Q.P.R’s fate was not yet confirmed: however, as Taarabt was wishing, Q.P.R won promotion, finishing as Champions, and the talented Moroccan is part of Mark Hughes’ plans to avoid relegation, having been inconsistently used by Neil Warnock prior to his dismissal.

This year, all three nominees will have similar expectations to those of Adel Taarabt. Shortlisted for the prestigious award, is: Cardiff City’s Peter Whittingham, Southampton’s Rickie Lambert and his Saints teammate Adam Lallana.

Cardiff City play in their second domestic cup final in four years on Sunday, having lost to Portsmouth in the F.A Cup Final in 2008: coincidentally the year in which Rickie Lambert finished top scorer in the competition. They take on Liverpool in the Carling Cup Final and the nomination of their hugely talented midfielder for the Award is a credit to their campaign. In Malky Mackay’s first season in charge of The Bluebirds, Cardiff have reached the Carling Cup Final and are still chasing promotion from where they currently sit at 5th, six points off of automatic promotion with 14 games left.

The achievements of Southampton under an ever-positive Nigel Adkins are equally admirable: coming up in second from the npower League One, Southampton quietly went about their summer transfer dealings, overshadowed by pseudo-rivals Brighton capturing League One’s top scorer Craig Mackail-Smith and Valencia’s Vicente, yet quickly established themselves at the top of the pack. To date, Southampton are yet to be positioned anywhere but the top two and led the pack for the majority of the campaign. Nominees, Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana, will be hoping their strong performances can continue and ensure Premier League status next season.

However, who will win the npower Championship Player of the Year Award 2012?

Rickie Lambert

In League One, Rickie Lambert had all the plaudits: they were as plentiful and as vast as his goal-scoring portfolio. However, when Southampton made the step back up into the second tier of English football, many suddenly left the Scouser’s side. The Southampton faithful didn’t, though, and after many a lazy comparison to Grant Holt, Saints fans were left wondering if they were the only ones knowing just how good Rickie Lambert was, as he seemingly continued to go unnoticed in the Championship.

Yet, Rickie Lambert’s recognition, all the more valued as it is coming from opposition managers rather than the previous system of fan votes, which was easy to rig, is full confirmation – if currently being the league’s top scorer with sixteen and second in the assists chart with nine wasn’t – that Southampton’s no.7 has made the step up.

What is much-covered in the media is Rickie Lambert’s transition from a chunky League One target man to a much trimmer “Saints fit” centre forward: however, this understates just how talented Rickie Lambert is technically as well as physically. His hold-up play is noted, his ability to drop off his man and play the quick one-two is not; his aerial ability is credited, but his wing play and succulent deliveries are not; and whilst his free-kick’s and penalties are often lauded, his creativity and vision is not. At 6’2, Rickie Lambert is the not so subtle underdog.

 theseventytwo rating: 19th best player in the league

Peter Whittingham

Unlike last year, the voting system is open to only the votes of the 24 managers in the Championship. The three-man shortlist is a reflection of the most voted for players in each manager’s five-man submittal. Peter Whittingham’s inclusion in the final cut for the trophy pays homage to a season in which he has helped his team towards a League Cup Final, contributing with two goals, one of which became the decisive third penalty in a 3-1 semi-final penalty shootout win against Crystal Palace.

However, it is in the league where Whittingham, who made his debut for Cardiff City in 2007, since becoming a permanent fixture for The Bluebirds under Dave Jones and then Malky Mackay, has made the biggest impact: the midfielder has featured in all of Cardiff’s 32 league games so far this season and his return of nine goals means that the former England -21 international leads the scoring charts for Cardiff – along with Kenny Miller – a feat he carried out until the end of the season during the 09/10 campaign, securing the Championship Golden Boot with 22 goals. Add to that that Whittingham has the most assists in the league, and the case for Cardiff creator is strong.

The npower Championship Player of the Year Award isn’t the only gong the Cardiff City hit man is up for either: due to his audacious attempt from 25-yards, caught on the volley, the free-scoring midfield maestro finds himself up against Darren Ambrose, Peter Leven, Kári Árnason and Paul Coutts for the Mitre Goal of the Year, something Barnsley ‘keeper Luke Steele wouldn’t begrudge him.

theseventytwo rating: 4th best player in the league

 

Adam Lallana

“For me he is the best player in the league,” said Nigel Adkins, “Lallana oozes class; it’s as simple as that.” For anyone that has seen this prodigious talent twist and turn opposition defenders inside out, his ability in undoubted: his feinting hips and dipping shoulders left John Paintsil on his bum when Saints suffered their first defeat of the season at the King Power Stadium. Now, as the final fourteen games approach, Adam Lallana has hit his brilliant best once more.

His performance against Derby, his second faultless home display on the trot, was scintillating. In the early stages of the season, David Connolly had provided the class on par with Lallana to enable an unstoppable partnership to form, but his dip in performances has seen the aging Irishman feature less, as competition for attacking places increases and on Saturday, it was January Japanese signing Tadanari Lee that made Adam Lallana spark even brighter once more. The relationship was telepathic and the one touch passing between the two was the catalyst for Southampton’s third goal, which was beautifully finished on the volley from Adam Lallana himself.

With five assists, Southampton’s 5th highest assister, and eight goals, Adam Lallana has proved himself as one of many sources of goals in a freely-attacking Saints side. However, the 23-year old one-club man is all about the team, “It’s obviously nice to get recognised but we just want to achieve promotion now because that’s our main goal for the season. If we get promoted then it’ll be brilliant.” Saints fans will be hoping the momentum gathered between now and the final run-in will be gathered at pace and such an award could only spur on their best player.

theseventytwo rating: the best in the league

Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit


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Categories : Football, Southampton FC

What Saints can learn from the team that “used to play football”

15 02 2012

As I sat and stood in interchanging fashion, rather like a Russian Kozachok dancer, in row E, seat 24, of the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand and looked up to my left to see the rather large and, unlike our own, perfectly working and crystal clear screen showing the game and match entertainment, in between self-promoting adverts and the worthy cause of Richard House Children’s Hospice, I was made aware, once again, that West Ham still consider themselves “The Academy of Football,” as they advertised membership to “The Academy.”

Whilst three of the starting eleven for West Ham on Tuesday, in their top of the table 1-1 draw with Southampton, were graduates of “the Academy” (Mark Noble – captain and scorer on the night; Jack Collison – substituted after 21 minutes, having seen teammate Matty Taylor sent off for violent conduct; and James Tomkins – freely chucking his elbows into the ribs of Dean Hammond like some kind of Inbetweeners dance tribute act,) the football was far from what West Ham had become traditionally associated with. But, according to Sam Allardyce, it’s ok because “all this team did before was lose” before him.

From where I was positioned, busy practising my own traditions of standing, sitting and kicking out – something that wasn’t considered dancing when I tried to re-enact it in a nightclub the same night, but is in Eastern Europe – when the Southampton faithful, myself excitingly and appreciatively included, began to sing “you used to play football” to the group of fans situated in the corner of the East Stand, it seemed well-received.

Of course, it is a chant that no football fan ever wants to hear about their club, but the fans were accepting of the fact that Sam Allardyce has changed that style West Ham have strived to maintain (instilling it as an ethos in the academy so it can grow through and into the first team) and duly clapped our satirical efforts that took the shape of a reply to their “we’ve only got ten men” chorus.

Lost in the tribalism that is the away stand, deindividualised by anthemic chanting and the quick dissemination of one man’s opinion into a whole stand’s worth, I quickly found myself shouting “hoof” regularly and singing a line that reassured any doubters over how many teams called Bolton Wanderers there were. Yet, for all the mocking that can be served in a 90-minute spell, to opposition fans that, in majority, agree with you anyway, West Ham are still at the top of the table with sixteen games left to play.

Unlike Big Sam, I can understand fans’ criticism of their style of play, described by one as “sterile 1-0 wins.”  Anyone that knows football would’ve expected such route one directedness to be witnessed at The Boleyn Ground when Allardyce took over: it was a style that, until recently, had become synonymous with the Reebok Stadium dwellers, Bolton Wanderers; Zat Knight even called for Owen Coyle to revert to such tactics.

However, being the disinterested and often tired football fan I am by the time The Football League Show starts, I hadn’t seen West Ham’s football first-hand all season – bar their John Carew headed appearance at St. Mary’s earlier in this campaign – and thus, I hadn’t fully engaged on a wholehearted opinion on West Ham’s football this season, and still haven’t.

Yet, the Sam stereotype was something further enforced by the pre-game entertainment in which a montage of five recent Hammers goals were shown: three were penalties  – two of them being described by the BBC as “controversial”; another was struck home by Winston Reid whilst David Forde laid motionless on the floor, having been floored by Julien Faubert, a goal that Millwall manager Kenny Jackett felt shouldn’t have stood; and the last of the five-goal highlights was a headed effort by Carlton Cole following a lofted ball into the box from deep.

Whilst the football isn’t pretty and the results, although victorious 56.67% of the time, aren’t always attractive, I can’t help admiring the relentless waves of attack that The Hammers led with in the opening stages, irrelevant of how direct they were or were not. They were like salmon swimming up water: they leaped up strong and regularly in attack and defence to head the ball clear and nod it down to runners gliding through the channels to meet the waiting balls and like salmon they didn’t give up when the tide was against them, like it was once Matty Taylor had been sent off.

When watching Southampton this season, despite the fact we’re the league’s top scorers, I have been hit with twinges of frustration when the neat, slick football isn’t paying off and a quick switch to something more direct isn’t adopted: it pangs me. We’re second and I can’t complain with that position, but having led the race for four months, not winning it or finishing second would pain me and if there is one thing we can learn from a team that aren’t admired for their style of play this season, it is their grit and determination to get the ball forward relentlessly.

I’d dislike for us to resort to that method as the norm for the rest of the season, but lately the goals are not being scored as frequent as they were for the first four months of the season – 2.2 per game – and they’re currently only coming at a rate of 0.9 goals per game and the ability to switch from the pretty to the necessary when needed, in order to get a result, could be the factor that ensures us back-to-back promotions.

West Ham “used to play football” as the chant went, but not playing it is serving them well at the moment: whilst some may like to believe we are Brazil or Barcelona, we’re not and sometimes the brutality of the game is as effective as the beauty.

Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit


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