Shocking News; THE TEAM OF THE YEAR HAS SEVEN CELTIC PLAYERS, TWO SHOCKERS AND ONE MAD OMMISION

This morning, the PFA Team of the Year came out and, as per usual, it’s a bit controversial. There are seven Celtic players in it.

That’s not an issue in and of itself—but there are two Ibrox players in there as well, and both of them are pretty laughable

I know this is voted for by the players, so there’s no overt bias here, but still. Always—always—when I read these things, it feels like they’re determined to shoehorn Ibrox players in whether they deserve it or not.

These things are so subjective that it’s hard to get truly wound up about them, but I’ve got a real issue with the two Ibrox names. Raskin has played about half a season. He’s barely shown up in most of the games he’s featured in. And Souttar has been out injured for weeks and weeks at a time and has likewise missed huge chunks of the campaign.

They’ve put Dalby of Dundee United up front, and I’ve no real problem with that—except if we’re canonising players who’ve only played half a season, then how are you going to say he’s been better than Kyogo?

All seven of the Celtic players who made the side are fair enough—Schmeichel, AJ, Carter-Vickers, McGregor, Hatate, Maeda and Kuhn… all deserved.

Someone will soon ask why none of Celtic’s so-called big three signings made it into the team of the year. For me, Engels should walk away with Young Player of the Year. But if you’re going to tell me that Souttar is a better defender than Trusty, I’m going to have a serious problem with that. If you’re going to tell me he’s a better defender than Liam Scales, I’m also going to take issue.

Engels is just a better footballer than Raskin. That’s not even up for debate, as far as I’m concerned. And next season will bear that out in full, I expect. Not only that, Engels will be in the team of the year, but he’ll also dominate all talk about Player of the Year, unless Maeda has another otherworldly campaign.

There’s a lot of tokenism in these things.

You can’t have a Team of the Year without at least one Ibrox player, or their fans would squeal blue murder, even in a season where they’ve grossly underperformed. Their season has been a failure on every level. There hasn’t been a single successful player in that team. To name someone in a Team of the Year is to say they’d get into our starting eleven—and none of the four players from the other clubs would get near ours.