The Busby Way Player of the Year: Nani

Well there was only going to be one winner of our player of the year poll and it became evident after the first day as Nani raced into an unassailable lead and as the poll closed he had won just over half of all votes with 51% of the poll.

The Portuguese winger has turned his career around at Old Trafford going from a fringe player to one of our most important performers in the blink of any eye.

This isn’t American football but looking at his stats you can see why Nani is such a threat as he has chipped in with goals and assists equally. Any fears of him not continuing in this rich vein of form this season were quickly quelled and despite that penalty miss against Fulham he has proved a valuable asset at numerous points this season with his goals and assists including most recently inadvertently setting up Park’s winner against Arsenal on December 13th.

Nani has indeed flourished in the last 12 months but he is far from the complete article and can still be frustrating but he has switched the ratio from ‘very frustrating with rare moment of brilliance’ to ‘brilliant but frustrating at times’. Also his penchant for going down easily and often is something that can still infuriate his most ardent supporter but it is something that he will hopefully work out of his game.

When Nani first joined us he was looked at as the new Ronaldo and such a tag may have weighed heavily on his young shoulders but in his countryman’s absence he has been allowed to develop not into the new Ronaldo but into his own player, he has been allowed to develop into Nani and hopefully in 2011 we will continue to see the best of him.

Poll results:

1. Nani (51%)

2. Vidic (19%)

3. Rooney (9%)