The Premier League confirmed their nominations for the Manager of the Year award on Thursday morning, with Mikel Arteta joining a list of six.
Roberto De Zerbi, Unai Emery, Pep Guardiola, Eddie Howe, and Marco Silva round out the list, and you can vote here.
Arteta obviously looks likely to miss out on the Premier League title with Arsenal, but he helped the team to make huge progress this season.
Even if the Gunners fail to pick up any further points this season, they’ll have gained 12 points and three places on their previous campaign.
By comparison, City would need to win all of their remaining games to make an improvement of one point, as they were already the Premier League’s team to beat last year.
Elsewhere, Arsenal also received three nominations in the Premier League’s Young Player of the Season category – Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard, and Bukayo Saka.
The Arsenal trio are joined by Sven Botman, Moises Caicedo, Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak, and Alexis Mac Allister in the running for the Young Player award. You can vote on that one here.
Martinelli, Odegaard, and Saka have been Arsenal’s leading players in terms of goal contributions this season, with Martinelli scoring 15 and assisting five, Odegaard scoring 15 and assisting seven, and Saka scoring 13 and assisting 11.
Saka is the only player among the nominees to hit double figures for both goals and assists.
Erling Haaland is obviously the favourite, following his 36 Premier League goals for City. But his Norwegian teammate Odegaard has had a pretty unique campaign too, scoring as many goals as any Arsenal midfielder ever has.
And at just 21, perhaps the likes of Martinelli and Saka are more deserving of a “Young Player” award. It’s up to the voters now.
