FWA Player of the year. A surprise really, inasmuch as they haven't given it to a defender since Steve Nicol, and have yet to give it to de Bruyne (although he did get the Players' Player last year).
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Ruben Dias gets another gong
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- Mar 2008
- 19106
- Revelling In The Hole
- England, Chelsea and Tooting and Mitcham. And Surrey CCC. And Wimbledon Dons Speedway (RIP)
- Nairn's Cheese Oatcake
This season, more than any other I can recall, hasn't really had a standout player, but maybe that says more about my diminished engagement.
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Originally posted by cantagalo View PostI'm rather ashamed to say I was only vaguely aware of the existence of this player. I would not be able to recognise him in a photo.
Anyone else, or is it just me?
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Four Man City players have previously won the award. Impress us by naming them off the top of your head, or scratch that head and check here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FWA_Fo...er_of_the_Year
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Scott Parker's stellar 2010-11 must have passed me by, I can't remember which trophies West Ham won that year. But he was very polite to the journalists, I'm sure.
I also could not pick Ruben Diaz out of a line up.
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Dias has been very good this season and can be probably more recognized because he turned John Stones back into looking a reliable center-back.
A combination of a less showy position and first season in England likely help few to know who he is. It's a good choice though - these things should go to defensive players more often.
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It seems to show the power of the FA Cup back then because Man City players won the award in 1955 & 56 despite Man City finishing below the Top 3 both seasons. OTOH the practice of just giving it to a player who won the title (or came very close) seems quite recent. Bruno Fernades would perhaps have won it had he been at the other Manchester club (or been at Man U in the Fergie Time era).
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Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post
I think we really need to see your working here. Top scoring ultra-defense?
Essentially what this boils down to is that a hell of a lot of man city's games this season went much the same way. At half time city would have had 70-75% possession, one shot on target, one shot off target, and the opposition would have either 0 and 1. City would spend the first half patiently passing the ball around among themselves, moving the opposition around, waiting for an opportunity to present itself. If they could get a goal from a corner or a set piece, or a player taking advantage of a mistake, then they'd happily pounce on it. But normally what would happen is that city would pass the ball around until the other team lose concentration and then city would pounce. They wouldn't necessarily be doing very much to force the game, but they didn't really have to, and they had another game in a couple of days. Mourinho used to talk about resting on the ball, and that's what city were doing in spades.
Given the first two things i outlined above, this makes perfect sense, and it worked out very well for them under the circumstances of the season, but City won't be playing like that next season. They a) won't have to play like that and b) the opposition will make it hard to play like that so City will broadly revert to the way they were playing before, because that was a good way of playing. It will be interesting to see what kind of defender Dias is then.
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