Yesterday Young Guns asked for you to vote for various player awards to celebrate the achievements of Arsenal’s Reserves and Youth teams during the 2008-2009 campaign. Despite some problems with the voting manner, we’ve managed to collect the results of the awards from you -our readers and dedicated fans. You can see below the winners of the prizes.
There were six categories and six awards up for grabs, in different sections and aspects of the Reserves & Youth system. They were as follows.
Academy (Under 18) Player Of The Year
Reserve Team Player Of The Year
Loanee Of The Year
Goal Of The Year
Signing Of The Year
Overall Player Of The Year
Picking up the Academy (Under 18) Player Of The Year award is skipper Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. In a widespread category, the winner only scooped 42.4% of the overall vote from Jack Wilshere on 29.3%, and Francis Coquelin on 18.2%. Of all the options, only James Shea and Luke Freeman failed to register a single vote while surprisingly Benik Afobe picked up a number of votes despite only featuring in a handful of games.
But the deserved winner had to be Emmanuel-Thomas. His 13 goals spread throughout the Youth Cup and Academy League competitions were vital – especially the ones which forced key come backs in the early stages. Jay’s versatility was also impressive – he played in no less than 6 positions and performed superbly in them all. The captain fantastic was the hot favourite to claim this prize but will it be his only in these awards? read on to find out.
Scooping the Reserve Team Player Of The Year award is Kieran Gibbs. In a year which had yielded no real strong candidate at this level, you can’t help but feel Kieran’s involvement in the first-team played an influential role in him being awarded with this gong.
Indeed the 19-year-old only played 4 games for Neil Banfield’s boys but he did manage a goal – a screamer in the 2-0 win over Portsmouth. But the way he kicked on and performed in the first team earned the starlet lots of credit. Next season promises to offer a lot for Gibbs but he’ll probably never forget what he achieved this term.
Henri Lansbury takes the Loanee of the Year award in a competitive group. Although he only left to join Scunthorpe in January, 4 goals in 16 games endeared him to both the Arsenal and Scunthorpe faithful. The winning attitude he showed on his return was also important. Nacer Barazite on 19.2% and Armand Traore with 16.2% pushed hard but couldn’t catch Lansbury at the top.
Next year will be another massive season in his development, and if reports are to be believed, another loan spell could be in the offing.
One of the easier decisions to make is to award Jack Wilshere with goal of the season. His screamer against Stoke City with the outside of his left foot showed invention and technical ability in the 2-2 draw. 69.1% of voters believed that Wilshere’s effort was clearly better than any of the others. A quick YouTube search proves why.
With another giant margin, Francis Coquelin wins signing of the season. 89.9% of the votes went to Frenchman Coquelin who exploded onto the scene in pre-season before starring for the Academy and Reserves sides. The manner in which he settled into things was impressive but Spanish defender Ignasi Miquel also had a great season and came second with 11.1%.
First team honours look a certainty for Arsenal’s latest French wonderkid.
The overall Player of the Year award goes to Jack Wilshere. Although Jay Emmanuel-Thomas just edged out Francis Coquelin, he couldn’t match Jack who stormed away with the prize in an emphatic victory for the little play-maker.
In an up and down season, Jack’s quality and style helped seal the F.A Youth Cup for Steve Bould’s boys at the end of a break through campaign. Being awarded the number 19 shirt was an amazing achievement, and after a brilliant pre-season he had a mixed year in the Reserves but came good when being used as a substitute in the Premiership.
A Carling Cup goal against Sheffield United and being involved in the England setup marked a remarkable year. Congratulations Jack.
Thank you for everybody who voted, if you have any ideas of how to improve the awards or any new categories you would like to see next year leave your comments below.
Article By – J.Sanderson
Great news. Id like to say well done to jack coz he deserves it after this season. I think he will be even better nxt year and even play in the cl or pl for us on a regular basis
How about an award for most potential? Instead of just who did best over the year, it would encourage us to look at flashes of brilliance in some cases and mental toughness in others. Often you’ll find that a player can play 4 bad games out of 5 but still we’ll think he’s full of potential; it would be interesting to see how people voted. Similarly, you could have a ‘Most Likely to be a First Team Starter in the Future’, which has subtleties such as what positions have least competition in the first team, the kind of players who usually come through (Left Backs!), etc. It could be interesting…
What do you think?
What a thrill i got watching the youth team play in the final, they have certain attributes the first team do not namely heading and having two tall imposing centre halves. They were remarkable!
I had voted for Barazite… I have seen a few matches and I still strongly believe in his abilities. I wish Lansbury the best though and I think he had deserved the award. I hope he can develop himself in a useful squad player. The most inportant thing for him to develop is mental strenght and a 100% commitment to Arsenal and wanting to be succesful for us…
I have doubts about certain players attitude when it comes to being honoured to play for Arsenal and win for them! We need to educate that from a young age in my opinion.
Barcelona has that with it’s Catalan players who experience playing for Barcelona as if they were playing for their country (catalonia) I think we should implement some kind of philosophy on this.
(sorry for my english I hope you understand what I mean :P)
I got all my votes as the winners :-). Maybe i should buy a lottery ticket lol
JET doesn’t deserve the award for best U18. This guy is lazy and has a terrible attitude, we shouldn’t reward that.
i’m sure the players will be chuffed…
Haha well done Elz Gooner! – maybe you should!
Frank – He may be lazy sometimes, but his massive goal haul and fantastic performances in key games stand out.
Fair enough i suppose for his goal haul.. I just prefer to see young players trying their arse off to make the grade. If this guy could just simply run around and get stuck in he could be a hell of a player allied to his technical level. It frustrates me to see a player with so much potential who will probably end up plying his trade at a lesser club purely because of putting in a bit of graft.
A “most improved” category wouldn’t go amiss! Particularly as that is one of the overall ambitions as a reserve player – to improve.
@ JS, JET’s performances @ reserves have been very poor, bcuz he doesnt have physical over older players that he enjoys @ U18 level so u need to temper down your excitement over JET. As long as his decision making & workrate is poor, Wenger will favour others ahead of him even though Wenger likes the height advantage that he could offer the 1st team/in 1st team games.
Yep, a very good friend of mine is a massive JET fan and we always have arguments about JET because at reserve team level he looks dreadful and I believe he should prove himself for the Reserves before stepping up to the first team.
J I find your comment strange that it was a suprise how much votes Afobe got seeing as he only played a handful of games seeing as Afobe scored 12 goals, made his reserve debut and always looked class
Receive, Pass, Offer…Receive, pass, offer. Any central midfielder who learns these three words at a young age and applies them will be one-step ahead of the rest, at least intelligence wise.
This is what they tell them at La Masia (Barcelona’s academy).
Just watch Wilshere and Fabregas and you will see this but JET, no. Lansbury is showing some signs.
Wilshere is a God, he will save Arsenal.
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I agree with Supergunner07 (btw. I like your writings here and on ArsenalYouth, yous should write articles for these sites occasionally). JET is not as big of a prospect as some people are playing him out to be. I’ve seen many comments on Goonertalk and other sites where people are saying he should be our answer in the DM position next season. He reminds of the Stoke bloke Sidibe. Big, strong and with good technique. But I’m not expecting JET to be much better than him. Can you guys really see him overcoming Ramsey, Lansbury, Song and Coquelin. Or if he played on the wings, overcoming Arshavin, Vela, Walcott, Nasri, Wilshere and so many others. He may very well become an EPL player but never an Arsenal starter or even a fringe player.
Stone: I think, in the same way it’s a bit much to say he’s answer to our problems; it’s also a bit much to say he’ll never be a starter. He has good technique, pace, physical ability and footballing intelligence- he just doesn’t always apply these essential skills all at one time, ya know? He’s still incredibly young though and most probably has at least 2 years in the reserves and a year on loan to connect his talents together before we make assumptions.
How does all this translate into helping the big boys at Arseanl. How many of these cats will actually make it to the big show. Thanks for reading my blog. World Cup qualifying is underway. I love it. USA stunk the joint out. Brasil has a hard one tomorrow against Uruguay. Check out my blog Bobby Gee http://bobbygee.wordpress.com/
Totally disagree with the analysis. The reserves as a whole have been very poor, look at the likes of Randall and Merida, they haven’t exactly raised the roof at reserve level, yet are supposedly highly rated (for me Randall is probably not Arsenal standard). JET is younger than both, so I wouldn’t expect him to shine in a poor team at this level. Still Reserve football is a higher standard than U18, all part of the learning curve.
JET is quality, we’ll see how he copes being a proper reserves player next season.
A player under rewarded was Bartley, he really has come on leaps and bounds. Perhaps a Defensive category is required?