Why this year's short-list means sweet PFA

While this year’s short-list for the prestigious PFA awards conveys just how quickly football can change, it identifies more than anything, a desperate need for an overhaul to the balloting system.

In an era of multi-millionaire footballers with access to up-to-the-minute technology, the PFA appears to be running this esteemed award’s system on logistical lines that wouldn’t look out of place in a Zimbabwe election. And it’s the timing that appears to be the salient problem.

The awards take place on April 27th, three weeks before the end of the season. As a result, the deadline for votes to be cast was 16TH March, two days after Liverpool’s demolition of Manchester United at Old Trafford, a contest that saw favourite for the award, Nemanja Vidic, traumatised by Fernando Torres throughout. But given the time-frame involved, it’s unlikely that any players would have factored this game, or indeed predicted United’s subsequent slump in form since.

However, by discarding the latter end and most important part of the season, it’s like telling the Booker Prize judges to hand back every book on the short-list when they're only halfway through.

This wouldn’t be so much of an issue when one player stands head and shoulders above the rest as Cristiano Ronaldo did last season. And in some respects perhaps it’s fitting that in a league of the Premiership’s stature that no one player on the short-list has outshone his peers.

But by asking players to vote at a time when Manchester Utd were looking invincible, breaking defensive records and crowned world champions, you have to be prepared to come out with egg on your face if things change. And unfortunately for the PFA, change has been imminent.

Under Hiddink Chelsea have re-established themselves as a force to be reckoned with – as have Arsenal – and United have begun to falter - if it wasn’t for Florent Macheda, Liverpool would be riding high at the top of the Premiership.
For the football writers, however, this is not a problem. Given that they have until the 11 May to cast their vote, they are able to wait and see if an outstanding candidate emerges.

At least by May the writers will know which club’s are successful. The PFA voters had to guess, and it looks like they all went with United.

Ryan Giggs is clearly a sentimental choice, favoured because of his long career as a model professional rather than his eleven starts and three goals in all competitions this season. And while Edwin van der Sar may have kept a record-breaking 14 consecutive clean-sheets in the league, he has conceded eleven goals in his last five games, and remains an average performer, reliant on an exceptional defence.

In front of him, Nermanja Vidic has been more eye-catching this season than Rio Ferdinand – who missed much of the record-breaking run through injury - but he has looked increasingly shaky in recent weeks. There can be no doubting however that the Serbian has been influential in maintaining United’s title challenge.

Cristiano Ronaldo will be the first to admit that he has not lived up to the dizzy heights of last season. If anything he has been damned by his own excellence, but while he remains the top scorer in the league, he is unlikely to become the first player to win the award in three consecutive seasons.

And that leaves us with Steven Gerrard – who for all his exceptional performances of late – will experience first-hand the ludicrous effects of the early ballot, given that his surge of form has come just after the players submitted their votes.

One significant thought raised by the short-list is whether professional footballers actually take a detailed note of the game that they play.

In a list well-populated by defenders, how might you ask, can any serious assessment of the season’s finest players not include Brede Hangeland, a player who has been at the heart of Fulham Football Club. And surely Mark Schwarzer’s contribution between the sticks has been more significant than that of Edwin Van Der Sar.

One stat that perhaps helps illustrate this point best is that at the time of writing, Edwin van der Sar has kept 18 premier league clean sheets and made 60 saves. Fulham's Mark Schwarzer on the other hand has comparatively only had 13 shut-outs, but has been forced into making a remarkable 123 saves.

Xabi Alonso, Steven Ireland and Phil Jagielka are all players who can feel unfortunate to miss out, but Frank Lampard’s omission from this year’s short-list is nothing short of preposterous.

No doubting he may be considered an unexciting choice, or so his fellow professionals appear to have decided, but he has been far more consistent than Ronaldo and during the final weeks of Scolari’s reign, Lampard carried Chelsea almost single-handedly through the chaos that seemed to be going on around them. Any professional who failed to notice that is daft.

And that leads us to another flaw in the system. For while perfectly respectable cases can be made for the Gerrard’’s, Lampards’ and Alonso’s of this world, handing out the end of season gong to a Liverpool or Chelsea player is going to look pretty silly if United end up winning everything in sight.

Alternatively what if Cesc Fabregas and Michael Essien - who were plagued with injury for the first half of the season - inspire their teams to do a Champions League/FA Cup double. Likewise, what if Fernando Torres scores in every remaining League game to win the title, might that have changed the voting?

Would it really be too much to ask for the £1million-a-year PFA boss Gordon Taylor to ask players to type a name on to a screen in May, hit the send button, and then tot up the scores?

Given that the award is, for most players, the one that matters because it comes from your peers outlines that it still has some credibility.

But in order to be a credible assessment of which player is the best over the course of the whole campaign, players must be given the opportunity to assess it as a whole.

SIDEBAR

 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.

 You are not allowed to vote for your team-mates and if you don’t vote, your team-mates will not be illegible to win. This means that the vote is fairly comprehensive, especially as PFA membership is pretty much 100 per cent.