And the winner of the NUFC Blog Player of the Season award is....

Well seeing as The Chronicle has unveiled their results for their own Player of the Season Award I guess it's about time I got my arse into gear and announced ours.

Those who have read The Chronicle today will know that Joey Barton was selected by their readers as their choice of Player of the Season, and in a carbon copy of that result I can reveal that the winner of of the NUFC Blog Player of the Season Award, as voted for by you lot, is none other than....... Joey Barton.

Barton managed to secure 33% of the vote to put him well ahead of Cheik Tiote who finished second on 26%. Rounding off the top was Fabricio Coloccini who managed to secure 17% of the vote.

It's a defiant message to the club who have announced that they will not be offering a player who has been voted to be the best of the bunch a new deal and is a mark of just how far Joey has come this year and how he has impacted on the first team.

Barton made 35 appearances in all competitions last season, scoring five goals in the process whilst being played mainly in an unfamiliar right-wing role. He was also the source of many an assist last season and set up almost half of Andy Carroll's goals before his move to Liverpool.

The leadership that Barton displayed was a huge help to the team as they set about securing survival on their return to the Premier League and his performances even saw the midfielder being linked with a return to international football with England at some points. Unfortunately we all know that an England call up is unlikely to happen for Barton, which is a crying shame but I guess some people are unwilling to give people a chance.

Of course there is the now dominant news of Barton's contract wrangle. It's been talked about a lot in the last few days and perhaps this poll represents a part of the reason why the news has been so disappointing to many fans.

Anyway, well done Joey Barton - NUFC Blog Player of the Season for the 2010/2011 Premier League season.

In other news...... The Premier League line up for next season is complete as Swansea beat Reading 4-2 in the Championship play-off final this afternoon. That means that the three promoted teams are QPR, Norwich and, obviously, Swansea. We now know what we are up against next season.

Well done Joey. Well done Swansea.