Sam tops the charts at old club Bournemouth
Burnley certainly didn’t turn in one of the better away performances at Bournemouth last Saturday, far from it and it was probably the worst performance on the road in 2017, but there was some personal success for the returning Cherry Sam Vokes.
Bournemouth had led from the first half with a goal scored by ex-Claret Junior Stanislas and Vokes returned the favour with what we all thought would be the equaliser seven minutes from time. It proved not to be, with the home side going back in front two minutes later, but for Sam his goal capped a fine performance when I think he won just about everything against the Bournemouth defence.
There is no doubt that he fully deserves to have won both the man of the match vote and the player ratings and to have won them both by some considerably margin.
He polled 64% of the man of the match vote with midfielder Ashley Westwood, securing 11% of the vote, the only other player to reach double figures to finish second. Scott Arfield took third place with Jeff Hendrick fourth. Both won 5% of the vote with Arfield securing just one more vote than Hendrick.
Vokes won the player ratings with 7.35 out of 10. I think that’s lower than his performance deserved but I suspect all of the player ratings would have been higher than the final result had that Bournemouth winner not gone in.
A rating of 6.18 saw Westwood again take second place, Hendrick was this time third with 5.88 while goalkeeper Tom Heaton and Matt Lowton both had ratings of 5.82 to finish in joint fourth place.
For the second successive match, Vokes has picked up the maximum ten points towards the Up the Clarets Player of the Year with Westwood collecting six points, Hendrick three points, Arfield two points with both Heaton and Lowton winning one point.
Those points have ensured that Vokes will be the May player of the month with only one game to go while Ben Mee has become the first Up the Clarets Player of the Year with an eleven point advantage over Michael Keane. That challenge between the two central defenders fizzled out unfortunately due to them both being out of the side.
There is just one more player of the year vote to come. That’s for the West Ham game and will be available on Sunday afternoon. After that, watch out for the goal of the season vote and then the votes for the best team performances, home and away.
The Bournemouth result is below followed by the player of the year table.
MAN OF THE MATCH
64% – Sam Vokes
11% – Ashley Westwood
5% – Scott Arfield
5% – Jeff Hendrick
4% – Kevin Long
3% – Matt Lowton & James Tarkowski
2% – Stephen Ward
1% – Tom Heaton
1% – Ashley Barnes
0% – George Boyd, Robbie Brady & Andre Gray
PLAYER RATINGS
7.35 – Sam Vokes
6.18 – Ashley Westwood
5.88 – Jeff Hendrick
5.82 – Tom Heaton & Matt Lowton
5.71 – Scott Arfield
5.47 – Andre Gray
5.41 – Stephen Ward
5.24 – Robbie Brady
4.94 – Kevin Long
4.82 – Ashley Barnes
4.76 – James Tarkowski
4.71 – George Boyd
UP THE CLARETS PLAYER OF THE YEAR
138: Ben Mee
127: Michael Keane
90: Tom Heaton
68: Jeff Hendrick
53: Ashley Barnes
49: Stephen Ward
47: Steven Defour & Matt Lowton
40: James Tarkowski
39: Andre Gray
38: Joey Barton
32: Dean Marney
29: Sam Vokes
25: Johann Berg Gudmundsson
18: George Boyd
15: Ashley Westwood
12: Scott Arfield
9: Robbie Brady
7: Aiden O’Neill & Paul Robinson
3: Tendayi Darikwa
1: Jon Flanagan, Michael Kightly & Nick Pope
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