Earlier this week, the PFA announced their SPFL Team of the Year, for the 2022/23 session. However, while several of the Bhoys were selected for the squad, one of Celtic’s main players was snubbed.
Seven Celtic players were selected in this year’s team of the year, with Joe Hart, Carl Starfelt, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Greg Taylor, Callum McGregor, Reo Hatate, and Kyogo all being included. However, Jota, who has had 23 goal contributions (Through 13 goals and 10 assists) was left out in favour of theRangers’ Malik Tillman, who has already hobbled back to his parent club Bayern Munich reserves after spending a barren, trophyless season at Ibrox.
The main source of confusion here is that Tillman has only achieved 14 goal contributions this season and none in the big games that matters, along with far fewer minutes seen on the pitch than Jota. It makes little sense that Jota was snubbed in favour of Tillman due to the large difference in, not only quality but simple goal contributions.
Tillman failed to score against Celtic whereas Jota hit the net three times against theRangers including the winners in the two most recent matches in the Scottish Premiership where a 3-2 win for the Hoops effectively ended any slim chance of Celtic being caught by Tillman’s team.
Jota also scored the only goal of the game in the Scottish Cup semi-final against theRangers at Hampden and for Tillman that meant his year in Scotland would be a failure with no domestic honours to go with the unwanted record of having the worst every record by any club in the Champions League group stage of all time. That is quite a remarkable fall from grace considering the interest they had created on https://legalbet.uk/betting-sites/sets/live-streaming/ after reaching the Europa League final in Seville last season where theRangers lost to a Bundeliga side Eintracht Frankfurt in a penalty shoot-out.
From that to six hammerings in the Champions League including a 7-1 home defeat to Liverpool really is an incredible drop in performance and results and it has to be said that Malik Tillman played his part.
The Celtic fan and football pundit Trevor Sinclair was quick to react to this year’s Team of the Year, saying “Make it make sense”. However, it’s worth noting that Sinclair counts Jota’s European contributions, which have no weight on this particular selection process as it only looked at domestic football performances. In any case, Sinclair took to Twitter to voice his confusion over the selection.
And if Jota’s outstanding form hasn’t been enough to earn him a place in the PFA’s SPFL Team of the season there is perhaps plenty of consolation with the news today that Portugal’s National Team manager Roberto Martinez is on the verge of calling the Celtic winger up to play a part in his squad as they look towards the Euros.
13 goals & 10 assists with some incredible moments in the biggest games …… make it make sense pic.twitter.com/FQTYLIFYAm
— Trevor Sinclair (@trevor8sinclair) May 9, 2023
