Source: Telegraph
PFA Player of the Year Awards ballot needs a revamp
Why have the players come out in such favour of the United team? Ferguson's side have already won the Carling Cup and still lead the league. But their current form is shaky and they could find themselves eliminated from the Champions League and the FA Cup by the beginning of next week.
This award is, for most players, the one that matters, because it comes from your peers. Yet ultimately the award is compromised by its own logistics. The voting process goes as follows: ballots are sent out to each club's PFA representative and once all his team-mates have voted he sends the ballots on to the scrutineers.
Andrei Arshavin has double target to prove himself with Arsenal in the FA Cup You are not allowed to vote for your team-mates and if you don't vote, your team-mates will not be eligible to win. This means the vote is fairly comprehensive, especially as PFA membership is pretty much 100 per cent.
The problem is the timing. The deadline for submission this year was March 16. The PFA rep will have to get everything off in good time, meaning that what happens in the run-in is largely ignored.
That doesn't matter so much when one player is clearly the best - Cristiano Ronaldo last season - but in a season like this, when no single players has stood out throughout, it becomes an issue. How players perform in these key games has a huge bearing.
This year, the deadline was two days after Liverpool's demolitions of United at Old Trafford. With the timing involved I would imagine barely any players would have factored this game, and United's subsequent slump, into the equation.
Nemanja Vidic was superb throughout the first two thirds of the season but he was destroyed by Fernando Torres at Old Trafford that afternoon, and has not quite regained his composure since. Can you really assess Vidic's contribution without taking in this key game, and its aftermath.
Edwin van der Sar must be in a similar boat - record breaking over the winter, but has conceded 11 goals in his last five games.
And what if Steven Gerrard, playing through the pain, scores the goals that brings the title back to Anfield for the first time in 19 years? Some of his superb individual performances have already been excluded by the timing of the award.
Then you think of the excluded players. What if Frank Lampard takes Chelsea to Champions League glory? He has consistently been Chelsea's best player - superbly so in early season - and is hitting form again.
In order to be a credible assessment of which player is the best over the course of the whole campaign, players must be given their chance to assess it as a whole.
And the nominees are...
Edwin van der SarThe records came tumbling down and for that reason he must be counted the best goalkeeper in the league this season. His experience allows him to aid the defence merely by pushing out into the right areas. However, he was superbly screened during that record run and it was more about being well organised than making spectacular saves.
Ryan Giggs: The Welshman Is enjoying a wonderful Indian summer to his career and has made some exceptional individual contributions. However he has made just 11 starts in the league this season and scored just three goals in all competitions.
Nemanja Vidic: Superb over the winter, leading the defence when Rio Ferdinand was missing through injury. Six goals is a great contribution from a centre half. I think he will win the award because most players will have voted before the Liverpool game when he was sent off after being humiliated by Torres.
Rio Ferdinand: Consistent throughout a solid defensive campaign for United, although he did miss most of December and nearly all of January through injury.
Defenders need to do something special to win awards and he has never hit the gung-ho heights that Vidic has this season.
Cristiano Ronaldo: The Portuguese winger is damned by his own excellence. He is joint top scorer in the Premier League and is still United's most potent threat from deep. Still, he has failed to get anywhere near the standards he set himself last season and has drifted out of games that he used to dominate.
Steven Gerrard: His superb recent form will not be taken into the reckoning, coming just after the players submitted their votes. Has helped Liverpool sustain their most consistent title challenge in nearly two decades and with 22 goals has made a superb individual contribution - not least in Europe, where he continues to excel.
