Vfynn_🥷🏼 𐙚@Vfynn_
🚨🎙️| Ian Wright on the PFA Player of the Year race between Bruno Fernandes, Declan Rice, and Erling Haaland and who truly deserves to win it:
🗣️ “Honestly, I think people have completely lost the plot with this award, Every single year we do the same thing, reduce football to numbers on a screen and then act shocked when the wrong player wins it.
“Take Bruno Fernandes for example. I’m hearing all this noise about him potentially breaking assist records in the Premier League, and suddenly he’s everyone’s pick. Since when did racking up assists automatically mean you’re the best player in the league? Football doesn’t work like that. Half the time those numbers don’t tell you about control, about discipline, about what happens when your team doesn’t have the ball. It’s easy to look at a stat sheet, it’s harder to understand the game.”
“And then you’ve got Erling Haaland. Look, I’m not denying he’s one of the best finishers we’ve ever seen, he’s unbelievable at what he does. But let’s be honest for a second… what he does is exactly what he’s supposed to do. He’s a striker. He scores goals. That’s his job description. Are we now saying that just doing your role at an elite level while brilliant, is enough to make you the standout player in the entire league? Because if that’s the case, we might as well rename the award and save ourselves the debate.”
“What frustrates me is that the real essence of this award, players voting for the player who actually dominates them gets lost. This isn’t meant to be about who has the nicest highlight reel or the cleanest numbers. It’s about who you come off the pitch thinking, ‘I couldn’t get near him today.’”
“And that’s where Declan Rice comes in. For me, he’s the one. Not because he’s trendy, not because he’s putting up flashy numbers but because he’s doing the hardest job in football and making it look routine. He’s everywhere. Breaking up play, driving forward, dictating tempo, covering spaces others don’t even see, and then on top of that, he’s stepping up in big moments. That’s influence. That’s authority. That’s a player running games, not just appearing in them.”
“You watch him and you realise he’s not just playing well, he’s controlling matches. And that’s what top players respect. Ask any midfielder in the league who they’d least like to play against right now, and I guarantee his name comes up more than the lads putting up big stats.”
“But because he’s not scoring 25 goals or getting 20 assists, people overlook him. That’s the problem. We’ve become obsessed with output and forgotten about impact. There’s a difference. A massive difference.”
“So when I hear people saying it has to be Bruno Fernandes because of assists, or Erling Haaland because of goals, I just think, have you actually been watching the games, or are you just scrolling through stats after full-time?”
“For me, if Declan Rice doesn’t win this, then we’ve completely misunderstood what this award is about. Because the best player this season isn’t the one padding numbers, it’s the one imposing himself on every single game, the one other professionals walk off the pitch talking about.”
“And right now, whether people like it or not, that player is Declan Rice. If he gets overlooked, then the award’s lost its credibility, simple as that.”
