How do you pick a player of the season?

Safety has been assured and now we can’t get relegated, thankfully, but with the end of the campaign fast approaching we’re now at the stage of the season where awards are dished out and accolades are given for good performances throughout the season.

That’s the problem though. How on earth do you pick out the best player from a team that had performed so poorly all season? How do you give accolades to players in a team that should never have found itself pondering relegation yet still had it’s Premier League future up in the air with just two games of the season remaining? It’s almost impossible…

Usually I’m pretty good at highlighting the good from the ugly but I’m really struggling to come up with options to add into a poll for this one. Maybe it shouldn’t be a “Player of the Season” award and should instead be an award doled on the basis of who has not been as bad as the rest.

Let me give you an example. To me a Player of the Season has to have performed above expectation, to be the one that has turned matches or helped us save them on a regular basis. Using that criteria I honestly can’t think of one player who has done any of that on a consistent basis this season.

So now I’m dropping down to the next level where I stumble across James Perch. Unfancied and unfashionable and by no means our best player, but can you honestly recall a time where he has let us down this season? Or a time where he has been the worst layer on the pitch?

So there is my nomination for Player of the Season (and I can’t believe I’m being serious) based on nothing other than the fact that he’s not let us down when called upon unlike so many other of the fashionable names within our ranks. But we can’t just have one nomination surely? I’m looking for a number of suggestions which I can eventually add into a poll before we can decide ultimately who we, as fans, deem to be our Player of the Season. Which is where you guys come into the equation…

Please leave a nomination in the comments below, ideally with a reason behind it, and I’ll count up the top nominees and use them in what will be our defining NUFC Blog poll for our Player of the Season.

I know the Mackems tried to rig one a vote a couple of years ago by voting for James Perch, such is their obsessive nature about anything to do with Newcastle, but the sad thing is that they may not be far wide of the mark when it comes to this season.

Comments welcome.