PFA 2011 - Right or Wrong?

The PFA awards were announced last night along with the team team of the year but were they the correct decisions?

Jack Wilshere deservedly won young player of the year after a brilliant first year in the Arsenal midfield. He made his debut for England in August when coming on against Hungary and since then has got better and better. Despite not scoring many (only 1 vs Aston Villa) and getting just a handful of assists, Jack has been very influential to the Gunners with only Song having played more minutes in midfield. Wilshere has great control with the ball, excellent determination and is very versatile. One of his finest performances was the home leg of the Champions League against Barcelona where he finished with a pass completion rate of 93.5%. He has already been compared with Gascoigne and Brady and big things are expected from the young man who I have no doubt will be a future Arsenal and England legend.

Gareth Bale became the fourth Spurs player to win the PFA player of the year...but was this the right decision?

Yes Bale has been a major part of Tottenham's Champions League run with a superb performance against the reigning European champions but what about the league? The Welsh winger has scored 7 goals and has 3 assists to his name. Sounds good but compare that to Van Der Vaart who's scored 10, 7 assists Arshavin with 11 assists and 6 goals and now Bale doesn't look as impressive. Another stat now, Bale's pass completion in the Premier League and Champions League is just 73%. There are many that are better than that; Wilshere completes 87% of passes and in the Premier League alone Denilson's pass rate is over 90%.

The other nominees were Parker, Adam, Vidic, Nasri, Van Der Vaart and Tevez. Parker and Adam have both been their clubs best players but they are both in the relegation zone. Vidic is always consistent, yet only John Terry springs to mind when I think of defenders to win the award. Nasri had a brilliant start to the season but slightly faded away when Fabregas returned to the line-up and I have already mentioned Van Der Vaart. That leaves Tevez who has 19 goals this season, only beaten by Berbatovs 21. Tevez is Manchester City, without him they would have to rely on Balotelli or Dzeko who are nowhere near world class players.

So in conclusion I think Bale was definitely the wrong decision as; VDV has scored and assisted more, Adam and Parker have both been more influential, Tevez and Vidic are always consistent and club captains and Nasri shows excellent skill which tears defences apart. All would've been better winners than the Spurs winger.

Finally I will briefly comment on the team of the year which is as follows:

Van Der Sar

Sagna, Vidic, Kompany, Cole

Nani, Nasri, Wilshere, Bale

Tevez, Berbatov

That is a squad managers can only dream of. That group of players have scored a combined amount of 71 goals with 40 coming from the two strikers. I cannot argue with that squad Van Der Sar is world class, even at 40 years old, the defenders have been on top form in all games they've played, the midfielders have the class to score, beat defenders and are all still very young and then you have the two top scorers in the Premier League.

Thanks for reading. All comments are appreciated.