Hearts and Motherwell rule PFA Player of the Year awards as poor Celtic and Rangers campaigns yield historic first
The Scotland PFA Player of the Year nominations have been announced.
Players from Hearts and Motherwell are set to dominate this season’s PFA Scotland Player of the Year awards - with Celtic and Rangers left out of the nominations for the first time in their history.
Hearts have enjoyed an outstanding debut campaign under head coach Derek McInnes and have led the league table for the majority of the campaign. Motherwell have been one of the stories of the season, with Jens Berthel Askou’s side transformed from pre-season relegation candidates into top four contenders.
Thanks to both teams' hugely impressive campaigns, players from across the league have voted for Jambos strikers Claudio Braga and Lawrence Shankland and Motherwell pair Tawanda Maswanhise and Elijah Just as their four nominees for the PFA Scotland Player of the Year awards.
Hearts duo Braga and Shankland have been pivotal to the club’s title challenge, having scored 34 league goals between them this season at Tynecastle, while Zimbabwean international Maswanhise lead the league goalscoring charts on 17. His teammate, New Zealand international winger Just, has 14 goal contributions at Fir Park this year.
It means that neither Celtic nor Rangers has any players listed as nominees for the awards, which are set to take place on Sunday, May 3, at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. While Celtic’s Benjamin Nygren had been touted as a potential candidate after scoring 15 league goals in his first season at Parkhead, neither he nor any of his teammates have been included on the list of nominees.
The confirmation comes directly on the back of last week’s PFA Scotland Team of the Year announcement, which saw Nygren and Rangers’ Emmanuel Fernandez as the only two Glasgow-based players in the starting XI. Rangers do have one nomination in the SPFL young player of the year category; however, with on-loan Tottenham Hotspur winger Mikey Moore nominated alongside Dundee's Luke Graham, Arbroath's Findlay Marshall, and Falkirk's Barney Stewart are nominated.
In the women’s category, Hearts forward Georgia Timms and Rangers top scorer Katie Wilkinson join Glasgow City duo Lee Gibson and attacker Nicole Kozlova as the Scottish Women’s Player of the Year nominees.
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