Defender and goalscorer shine at Ewood
Central defender Ameen Al-Dakhil and goalscorer Manuel Benson were our best two players on that momentous night at Ewood Park on Tuesday of last week when the Clarets beat home team Blackburn Rovers and become champions.
It was always a race between Al-Dakhil and Benson for the man of the match and the player ratings and it’s fair that they both won one and finished second in the other.
Al-Dakhil was voted the man of the match with 41% of the vote, just ahead of Benson who secured a 38% share. Behind them was Ashley Barnes who won 6% of the vote and Charlie Taylor who had 5%, those two taking third and fourth places.
You can’t beat a goalscorer and especially when he scores a special goal. We still talk about the Terry Cochrane goal at Ewood in 1978 and Scott Arfield placed himself in Turf Moor folklore when he scored there in 2015, those goals, like Benson’s, coming in a 1-0 win.
Benson it was who won the player ratings with 8.31 out of ten, ahead of Al-Dakhil whose rating was 8.11. Goalkeeper Aro Muric was assured throughout and came third with 7.69 as Josh Cullen and Jack Cork shared fourth place with both rating at 7.43 out of ten.
It’s given both Al-Dakhil and Benson eight points towards the Up the Clarets Player of the Year. There are two points for Barnes and Muric with all of Cork, Cullen and Taylor picking up one point. With Jordan Beyer not playing in this game or the next one at Bristol City, the one point won by Cullen has ensured he will be our player of the year, but more on that later. Benson has now moved ahead of Cork into third place; he’s making up for lost time and would have been a big candidate for the player of the year had he not missed so many games since January.
The Bristol City VOTE will run until tomorrow night and that will just leave the Cardiff vote next week to end the season.
The Blackburn result and the current player of the year table are below.
MAN OF THE MATCH
41% – Ameen Al-Dakhil
38% – Manuel Benson
6% – Ashley Barnes
5% – Charlie Taylor
3% – Josh Cullen
2% – Jack Cork
1% – Arijanet Muric
1% – Ian Maatsen
1% – Josh Brownhill & Vitinho
0% – Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson
0% – Connor Roberts
0% – Anass Zaroury
PLAYER RATINGS
8.31 – Manuel Benson
8.11 – Ameen Al-Dakhil
7.69 – Arijanet Muric
7.43 – Jack Cork & Josh Cullen
7.34 – Ashley Barnes
6.94 – Connor Roberts
6.66 – Charlie Taylor
6.54 – Josh Brownhill & Anass Zaroury
6.31 – Ian Maatsen
5.77 – Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson
5.49 – Vitinho
UP THE CLARETS PLAYER OF THE YEAR
140: Josh Cullen
129: Jordan Beyer
107: Manuel Benson
106: Jack Cork
99: Nathan Tella
59: Anass Zaroury
56: Ian Maatsen
54: Ashley Barnes
52: Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson
45: Charlie Taylor
44: Josh Brownhill
40: Ameen Al-Dakhil & Arijanet Muric
35: Taylor Harwood-Bellis
34: Connor Roberts
23: Jay Rodriguez
22: Hjalmar Ekdal
21: Vitinho
15: Bailey Peacock-Farrell
10: Matt Lowton
7: CJ Egan-Riley
6: Samuel Bastien & Scott Twine
3: Halil Dervişoğlu
2: Darko Churlinov, Luke McNally & Michael Obafemi
1: Dara Costelloe
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