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TEF Player of the Season sponsored by Kiwi Polish: ideal for making your turds nice and shiny

The shortlist chosen based on MoM votes, pro rata for those only around part of the season and a minimum of 10 appearances. If there's anyone not on here who you'd genuinely vote for then stick them in the thread and I'll count them up. I know there's one game left, but nobody is changing their mind based on Morecambe. I've left the poll open for eight days so you can wait to vote if you really want. You get three votes, it's technically a top three but they all count the same, feel free to post the order below.

Your candidates are...

Murphy Mahoney - Goalkeeper
25 appearances, 53 goals conceded, four clean sheets

One of three candidates who left the club in January and five that played only half the season, goalkeeper Mahoney racked up plenty of votes despite conceding more than two goals a game through his spell between the sticks in SN1. Is his excellence at ball retrieval enough to get your vote?

Tom Brewitt - Defender
24 (+9) appearances, 1 goal

Possibly the most divisive player in the Swindon squad, are voters still on board with Brewitt’s heart on sleeve/heart in mouth style of defending? Or have you started to accept / always believed that he simply isn’t very good at football?

Udoka Godwin-Malife - Defender
43 appearances, 1 goal, 3 assists

Possibly the only positive story behind the scenes at Town this season was UGM’s John Legend cover version, and in this grimmest of seasons, perhaps picking a Pop Idol is easier than picking a Kop Idol? Often our biggest attacking threat, from centre back, to be fair to him, and probably our most consistent player.

Conor McCarthy
16 (+1) appearances, 2 assists

Perhaps nominated for his first two games alone, McCarthy arrived in a large box labeled “that dominant central defender we’ve needed for a decade” and initially at least, lived up to the billing. He tailed off badly towards the end of the season, but two or three good games is probably enough to put him in the top half of this squad right?

Saidou Khan - Midfielder
33 appearances, 1 goal, 3 assists

Did I say Brewitt was the most divisive player in the squad? Perhaps not. Depending on your view, the best defensive midfielder in the league (thanks for reading Gav) or a positional, temperamental liability. Certainly the player in our squad with the biggest gap between his best days and his worst.

Dan Kemp - Midfielder
27 appearances, 16 goals, 8 assists

It’s Dan Kemp. God I miss Dan Kemp.

Paul Glatzel - Forward
17 (+1) appearances, 7 goals, 2 assists

Another January signing, and one that we’d probably have been happy to have just seen remain uninjured for the rest of the campaign based on his past record. He’s exceeded expectations in a grim time for Town and should be the first name on the teamsheet next year. Let’s just hope it’s for Swindon, not Mansfield for £25k.

Jake Young - Forward
22 (+4) appearances, 16 goals, 4 assists

Has a striker scoring 16 goals in half a season ever got less love? It’s a funny one, Young really didn’t get that many votes in the MoM polls over his time at Town but by Christ we’d be sunk without his goals. Have you re-evaluated enough to vote for him?

Charlie Austin - Forward
36 (+11) appearances, 10 goals, 6 assists

I thought about not including Charlie Austin on the shortlist. He’s not even close on the MoM votes and to be honest I think he’s been fucking dire most of the season. On the other hand, he’s been involved in every game outside the BSM Trophy, scored 10 and assisted 6. Maybe you want to vote for him as a lifetime contribution award, I don’t know?

None of the above - Utility Player
Sure to be a popular choice, ‘none of the above’ would have swept the week-by-week voting if not for regularly being put up for selection by the manager. In our worst season for seventy years, is it unreasonable to spoil your ballot?

Kemp & Young get my votes. That’s it.

UGM has been ok and in hindsight we definitely got the better end of the deal when you consider FGR got relegated and a whopping 4 starts and 9 sub appearances out of Marcel Lavinier who looked like a prospect for us the previous season.

Shame we can't vote Kemp thrice, reckon we'd be down without his contributions

Young and Dokes get my other votes

I went Kemp, Young, Glatzel, but please imagine a very large gap between each name in that list.

Kemp, Young and Glatzel for me too.
I can’t seriously vote for any defenders with the goals we keep conceding - in number and type. We’ve conceded over 1.8 goals a game in the league, and in some games it could have been a lot more.
In my view, UGM gets a lot of his MoM votes for his driving forward runs carrying the ball out of defence - these are eye catching but distract many from his poor positioning in defence.

In the OSC player of the season vote, I protested that not allowing votes for departed loanees was nonsense - Dan Kemp is the obvious Player of the Season - and said in those circumstances I would vote for Reece Devine.

Dan Kemp for me

Kemp. Without him we’d be looking forward to the National League next season.

Kemp is the best player we had this season. But even he had long periods in games where he was ineffective.

Young was mostly ineffective and then out of nothing scored a goal or two per game!

UGM is probably the most influential in games across the whole season. But, he’s not all that good and he is still here and he is ours.

Kemp for me followed by young

UGM has been our best player over the whole season.

Kemp and Young saved our ass in the first 9 games, with Kemp being more consistent than Young.

Kemp it is

Those were the 3 I voted for. Dread to think where we might be without Kemp and Young's involvements up to January.

Bottom?

Interestingly (I suppose) we've actually scored a lot of goals this season - 74 - which is more than three of the four teams in the playoffs (14 more than Barrow!)

We have however conceded more than rock bottom FGR and joint second most in the league (80) with Salford and Sutton. Who said there was nothing to fight for on the final day.

Notts County are a more extreme version of us - scored more than everyone but Stockport and conceded more than absolutely everyone

Kemp, Young and UGM in that order

Brewitt?! Khan!? Don't even deserve mentions.

This for me too.

Both have more MoM votes than Young, who is currently a comfortable second in this vote. Arguably that just shows that democracy can't be trusted, or alternatively both suffer from having had a good start to the season and then tailed off badly (as opposed to just leaving the club, which is good for your legacy!). First part of the season up to Newport H on 14th October, Brewitt was literally leading the vote. He's barely received a vote since though.

I think there will be some seriously grumbling when I do the EOS post about how well Brewitt does!

I seriously worry about people voting for Khan and Brewitt. They've been appalling.

Brewitt did start the season well. As did the team. He tailed off and has looked garbage since his first injury.

Not in the POTS discussion though!

Brewitt got some sympathetic votes at the start of the season - I don’t think he was ever great but did well with the hand he was dealt (ie two CB partners bombing forward and not defending)

At that point - I certainly gave him the benefit of the doubt that the system / formation / tactics were hugely contributing to his reactionary, erratic, out of position, last ditch defending. He was doing what needed doing - he got props for that.

However, since changing the shape / formation / tactics & personnel Brewitt has still played exactly the same and showed nothing to suggest he could be a much calmer, proactive defender.

I can see why he got votes early on & was cut some slack…

…and his last ditch defending is good but early on in the season it felt like he was covering for other people’s lack of defending….later on he showed that’s just his game in general.

To be fair to Brewitt he was the only defensive player in the team at the start of the season.
Both UGM & FBT were looking to push forward at every opportunity & the wing backs rarely defended so most of the defending was left to him, that added to the lack of a defensive midfielder meant he got a lot less criticism than he was probably due.

If Flynn had been able to sign the CB he wanted there’s little doubt that Brewitt would have been the one on the bench

UGM has been the most consistent performer over the season.
Kemp was the best performer over half a season.
We got lucky with Young and his goal return was impressive over half a season.

Says a lot that FBT, who would have been right up there in his first season, is nowhere to be seen this, in the poll as on the pitch. Biggest downward movement across the squad.

He won by a landslide last year: https://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=59605.0

Don't know how people can put UGM right up there. His marauding runs might have been fine for a central midfielder, but he bears a share of the responsibility for being part of the leakiest defence we've had since Prem days (against very average opposition).

Literally no one has voted Brewitt in this poll

Its because of the way we play.

He's not a great defender, no. If it was marking him (or any of the defence e.g. Brewitt who is a stay at home defender, then its 'nil point'!) But his marauding runs have been a big part of us winning games.

All personal opinion.No one has been consistently good throughout the season. Some have had decent and terrible patches(Brewitt,UGM, McCarthy,McEachran,Austin,even Khan) Some have been more bad than good(Shade, FBT) some have been good for the majority of games they've played( Young, Glatzel, Bycroft and Mahoney) some have been consistently average( Kinsella,Devoy). One has been above average in most games he's played. Kemp

Dokes.  Personally, I think he covers, tackles and intercepts like defender.  Perhaps lacks the mentality.  No aerial presence but he is eager and careful enough with his challenges.  As noted above, his marauding runs have turned defence into attack with genuine threat.  Not his fault, imo, that our coaching has never applied any system to cover him when he loses the ball.  A decent CDM and better defensive coaching with responsibility shared with wingers and also the CDMs and CDs should cover that.  Unlike Khan for eg, Dokes hasn't tended to wrongfoot his own defence losing the ball suddenly in the defensive third failing with a turn or drag back.  There has generally been time for a teammate to cover him losing possession out of position.  Also he consistently puts in 100% effort.

Kemp obviously.  But only half a season.  So not for me. Perhaps I should not count that against his wondrous movement and finishing.  After all, I gave up watching after Sutton away and can only judge on 85% of a torrid season.

Was responding to the comment about MOM votes.

Has to be Kemp & Young for me, without those 2 we would certainly be relegated

Kemp. Easy

Kemp - no contest.

Bradford City POTS awards in my hotel tonight.