Last night Sunderland held their annual end of season awards where they handed out awards for: Player Of The Year, Young Player Of The Year and Goal Of The Season.
PLAYER OF THE YEAR - DANNY BATTH
Danny Batth picked up the player of the year award and rightfully so in my opinion. He’s been in countless different centre back pairings this season and always looked solid. To think we signed him on a free in League One is unreal business. Rest up Danny and we all look forward to seeing you back out on the pitch soon.
PRIVILEGE
“It’s a privilege to be recognised by your fanbase as player of the season so huge respect to the fans and thank you for the award. I actually watched Rossco pick up the award last year and had one eye on it then hoping I’d be in the running so thank you for that and I’ve enjoyed every minute of the season and looking forward to seeing how it ends.”
ALL THE PARTNERSHIPS
“I’ve enjoyed it, I feel like I’ve managed to hit a level of consistency and I’ve really enjoyed every game to be honest win, lose or draw when you look at our following, the support we’ve got and how excited the team’s been this season. Like you say, so many changes to the team, so many young players that are exciting to watch and play with.”
BEST GAME
“I’d probably go with the Reading away game just because of the goals we scored and that was kind of the game where as a group of players we went to Reading and I think Reading were high flying at the time and we kind of laid down a bit of a marker for us as a group and for the rest of the teams in the league to realise that we’re not actually a bad team, obviously we were newly promoted and a bit unknown but that was the first game I thought we did really well.”
SUPPORTING FROM THE SIDELINES
“Oh yeah, I’ll be getting my pom poms out ready to support the lads for the rest of the games. It’s not going to be easy to watch but I look forward to seeing them and off the back of that West Brom game I’m sure they’ll attack the games remaining.”
SUPPORT
“I think when you Join Sunderland you know what to expect in terms of the fanbase but when you’re actually part of the team and the group you realise on a day to day basis what a big club it is and the support and passion of the fans is unbelievable so everyone gets to enjoy it and wear the badge with pride.”
YOUNG PLAYER OF THE SEASON - AMAD
Another one that doesn’t come as a surprise, Amad has been electric ever since he joined on loan from Manchester United. The Ivorian has twelve goals and three assists in the Championship and has been a joy to watch on the right with Patrick Roberts. He will be a big miss when he goes back to the Red Devils.
GOAL OF THE SEASON - JACK CLARKE V READING
I think this is the biggest shortlist for goal of the season we’ve had in a long time, there are fair arguments for other goals claiming the award. We’ve scored plenty of wonderful goals this season, whether it’s a nice passage of play with the ball on the floor or a moment of individual magic but I do think the goal against Reading is a worthy winner of the award, the build up was class and the composure from Clarke was top notch.
After presenting Jack with the award Nick Barnes mentioned the fact that somehow none of our goals had been nominated for the EFL goal of the season to which Jack replied;
“I’d rather win this award anyway!”
