Destiny Udogie has emerged as not only one of Tottenham Hotspur’s key players, but also one of the best young players in the league. He’s getting recognition for that today. Sky Sports released a shortlist of nominees for end-of-season awards today, and Udogie was listed as a candidate for the Premier League Young Player of the Season.
Pretty cool, right? I guess so, except that the award is really stupidly set up. The qualifications are that a player must be 23 or younger at the start of the season to be eligible, but that’s pretty much it. Take a look at that list again. Now take a look at the nominees for (not young) Player of the Season.
Yup. Fully half of that list — Phil Foden, Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak, and Cole Palmer — are nominated for both POTY and YPOTY. To me, that’s dumb and likely means that the POTY winner will also win YPOTY because why wouldn’t they? This happened last year too when Haaland won both awards because he met the criteria for both, and it’s very likely to happen again unless they change the rules that nominations for POTY means disqualification from YPOTY. At minimum they should change it so that either it’s a 21 and under competition, or if you’ve won a YPOY in the past you don’t get to win another one. At least Haaland, playing his eighth year of top flight professional football this season, will age out of qualification next year… barely (he was born in late July).
But I digress. This is actually pretty cool that Udogie gets recognized here because he’s had an outstanding season in his first Premier League campaign. I maintain that he’s going to be an absolute star, and winning (or not winning) a Young Player of the Year award doesn’t change that in the slightest. Pretty cool! Can’t wait to have him back healthy and firing next season.