Facebook Football Awards: Will Arsenal dominate again despite disappointing season?
The shortlist for this year's publicly voted for awards have been released
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Your support makes all the difference.Arsenal will end this season without a major trophy, but thanks to the Facebook Football Awards they might yet pick up a few gongs.
The social media giant's football awards return for a second year with the nominations for the various categories revealed today.
Last year Arsenal dominated the winners, with four of the five awards going to the Gunners. Alexis Sanchez won Player of the Year and Content of the Year, Arsene Wenger was voted Manager of the Year and they also won Club of the Year. The only other award dished out went to Harry Kane, who was named Young Player of the Year.
The dominance of Arsenal, despite finishing third in the Premier League and lifting only the FA Cup, led to accusations that their fans had hijacked the public vote. Wins for the Gunners in other public polls gave the theory credence.
So coming to this year's Facebook Football Awards, Mesut Ozil and Hector Bellerin might be feeling confident. The pair are nominated in the Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year categories. However, there will be no Club of the Year or Manager of the Year gong as they are not represented in those. In the Best XI of the year category, Ozil and Bellerin are options alongside Petr Cech in goal.
Top-of-the-league-Leicester have the most nominations with 10, with Tottenham behind with nine. Watford, sitting comfortably mid-table despite many predicting they would go down, have five nominations.
FULL LIST OF NOMINATIONS...
Player of the Year
Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy, Mesut Ozil, Harry Kane, N'Golo Kante, Dimitri Payet
Young Player of the Year
Dele Alli, Erc Dier, Anthony Martial, Hector Bellerin, Ross Barkley, Raheem Sterling
Best Premier League club of the Year
Leicester, Tottenham, West Ham, Bournemouth, Watford, Stoke
Manager of the Year
Claudio Ranieri, Mauricio Pochettino, Quique Sanchez Flores, Eddie Howe, Slaven Bilic, Mark Hughes
Content of the Year
All Premier League clubs were given the opportunity to submit their favourite piece of content from the 2015/16 season – so that fans can pick their favourite.
Best XI of the year
(4-3-3 formation, three goalkeepers, eight defenders, six midfielders, six attackers)
Goalkeepers
Jack Butland, David De Gea, Petr Cech
Defenders
Toby Alderweireld, Hector Bellerin, Robert Huth, Chris Smalling, Kyle Walker, Craig Cathcart, Christian Fuchs, Charlie Daniels
Midfielders
Riyad Mahrez, Mesut Ozil, Dele Alli, Dimitri Payet, Willian, N'Golo Kante
Forwards
Jamie Vardy, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Odion Ighalo, Sergio Aguero, Troy Deeney
Mirror Football Fan of the Year
Nominations supplied by clubs
Votes can be cast on the Football on Facebook page from today until Friday 29 April, with the winners announced at a ceremony broadcast live from London on 9 May.
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