Looking at this year's shortlist for the PFA Footballer of the Year, with no fewer than five of the six candidates hailing from one club, two things are obvious.
First, the list passes its sell-by date quicker than a prawn stuffed down the back of the sofa.
What might have seemed a good idea in February when nominations were sought looks decidedly odd come April. Clearly influenced by Manchester United's defensive record, the Premier League professionals nominated three players back then whose claims have been conspicuously undermined by subsequent lapses.
But the more significant thought raised by that shortlist is this: do professional footballers actually watch the game they play?
If they did they would surely realise that there are three names missing from that list that sing out for a nomination, belonging to three players who, week-in, week-out, not only put in the most colossal shifts, but, through their efforts, have altered the direction of their clubs.
Since the PFA selection is well populated by defenders, let's start at the back. How, you might ask, can any serious assessment of the season's finest players not include Brede Hangeland of Fulham?
The towering Norwegian centre-back was one of Roy Hodgson's first purchases when he arrived at Craven Cottage. And you can understand why. From the moment he arrived in January 2008, a defence that had been a byword for generosity started to get mean.
With Hangeland directing matters, a team that had looked doomed to relegation escaped at the last. This season, safety came in early March. What's more, that same bunch of players who last year looked doomed are in with a serious chance of European qualification.
At their heart has been Hangeland, quick, intelligent, strong, a master of all he surveys. He is the most naturally talented defender this side of Ledley King. And he is blessed with two complete knees.
At many a junior club there is a category in the end-of-season awards for Most Improved Player. Hidden within it is something of an insult: last year you were crap but this you're all right.
But if you were going to include in the six a Most Improved it would have to be Wigan's Titus Bramble. At Newcastle, a laughable byword for comical ineptitude, under the tutelage of Steve Bruce at Wigan he has blossomed.
Always blessed with power and pace, he has added a level of concentration that was entirely missing from his game at Ipswich and Tyneside. When it came to reading the game at Newcastle he could sometimes look illiterate, now he picks up the nuances of an attack with an immediacy that marks out the good player. Bruce, understandably given his own approach and something of a connoisseur of fore-square centre backs, has allowed Bramble to develop largely by trusting him.
And like Hangeland at Fulham, his performances have provided a security in which the rest of the team can prosper. With him around, Wigan have never looked relegation fodder.
He might be the least considered footballer in the rest of the country - and certainly he's the most cackled at - but you won't find many Evertonians laughing at Phil Neville.
When Mikel Arteta ruptured his knee ligaments in February, it was widely assumed that would be that for Everton's season. Already bereft of strikers, Arteta was their most influential, intelligent midfielder. A slow sink towards mediocrity was predicted.
But that was to ignore Neville. Now fully relocated from defence, he has become an outstanding holding midfielder. When he leads his team out at Wembley against his old club Manchester United on Sunday, we can be certain of what we will get from Neville: effort, guts, many a teeth-rattling, in-your-cartilage challenge.
But there is something else to his game that largely goes unnoticed: subtlety. With Arteta no longer there to receive his three yard passes and do something clever with the ball, Neville has been obliged to do it himself. These days, around the edge of an opponent's penalty area, he is capable of the most intelligent of interventions.
If you remain a Neville-knocker, if you still believe that a man so closely resembling Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel, could not possibly be a proper footballer, then just watch him on Sunday. It will be an education. And don't be surprised if he gets a call up to Fabio Capello's end-of-season international jamboree.
For him, that would be the nomination that counts.
By: Jim White
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