It’s been another incredible season of Premier League football with plenty of drama, tension and excitement across the country, and as the campaign draws to a close, here are my Premier League awards for 2021/22.
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Plenty of Liverpool players are deserving of this award this season, such as Alisson or Virgil van Dijk, but no PL player had as much impact on their team this season as the Egyptian King Mohamed Salah. The Liverpool forward currently leads the league in terms of goals (22) and assists (13) and is amongst the conversation for the best players in world football. Salah displayed ridiculous consistency for Liverpool this season while also being the difference-maker in the big matches, scoring a hat-trick at Old Trafford and bagging important goals against other championship rivals, Manchester City and Chelsea.
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Following the departure of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the fading impact of Alexandre Lacazette, Bukayo Saka rose to the occasion for Arsenal this season to become the main man for Mikel Arteta’s side. Saka is now the face of the burgeoning Arsenal project and played a starring role in helping the North London club return to relevancy and lead the race to finish in the top four. The 20-year-old broke double figures in goals for the first time in his career this season, netting 11 strikes for the Gunners in 34 matches while also supplying six assists.
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David Moyes (West Ham), Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Antonio Conte (Tottenham) are all worthy of winning the coach of the year award, but for taking his team to what looks to be a fourth league title in five years, this accolade goes to Pep Guardiola. Despite not strengthening dramatically in the summer, Manchester City seemed to have performed the perilously difficult task of retaining the Premier League title, with Guardiola’s side continuing to innovate and dominate. 34 games into the season, City have conceded the least number of goals and scored the 2nd most goals – without having an out and out striker to depend on – while also competing on various other fronts in cup competitions.
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Considering the hype surrounding Jadon Sancho on his return to English football, things couldn’t have gone worse for the former Borussia Dortmund sensation in his first season in Manchester. Although Sancho wasn’t helped by the chaos surrounding him in Old Trafford and the revolving door of managers, the Englishman only managed three goals and three assists in 29 appearances. Sancho struggled to deal with the pace and physicality of Premier League defenders in the opening months of the season, and barring a promising run of form in February, the 22-year-old has been unable to exert the same influence on games compared to his time in Germany.
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Martin Odegaard, Emmanuel Dennis, Marc Cucurella, and Aaron Ramsdale have all been game-changing transfers for their respective clubs this campaign, but my signing of the season has been Wolves goalkeeper Jose Sa. The Portuguese shot-stopper has been a massive upgrade on Rui Patricio for Bruno Lage’s side and has been by far and away the best shot-stopper in the league this season. Sa has an outstanding league-high save percentage of 82.6% and has also saved Wolves nearly 11 goals this season with his shot-stopping according to post-shot Expected Goals – the most by any goalkeeper this season. The former Porto keeper is one of the biggest reasons why Wolves have been a top-five defence in the league this season and are still in with a chance of finishing in the European positions with three games to go.
[Featured Image Credit: Mohamed Salah]
Shivaan Shah