THREE LEAGUE WINNERS are joined by one loser on the shortlisted nominations for the Football Writers’ Player of the Year Award of 2020.

Celtic stars Odsonne Edouard and Callum McGregor – who are the two front runners in The Celtic Star’s Player of the Year alongside Scott Brown and Fraser Forster are both included in the Sports Writers’ final four. Both players were part of the Celtic team that won both the Scottish Premiership and the Betfred Cup and also maintain an interest in the Scottish Cup which has still to see the two semi-final and final played when it is safe for the SFA to admit fans to Hampden.

Edouard and McGregor are joined by Dundee Utd striker Lawrence Shankland, a player who help the Taysiders win back their place in the Premiership with his goalscoring exploits in the Championship. Like Celtic, Dundee Utd were runaway leaders in their division and were correctly named Champions when play was stopped due to the pandemic.

So three WINNERS all with major honours to their name this season are joined by a LOSER – the Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos. Perhaps he’s in there because he’s given the hacks so much to write about this season? The slit-throat gesture to Celtic fans in December, or the fake translation of his interview with Sky Sports (to be fair to Morelos, that was hardly his doing), or his scoring exploits that came to the attention of ‘Her Indoors’ and the Private Eye who was contracted to suss out what exactly was going on and was chased down the street by the Colombian before the blame was falsely placed on Celtic Supporters.

His goalscoring record against Celtic remains consistently outstanding and even when he got the chance from the penalty spot in the Betfred Cup Final against the ten men of Celtic, Fraser Forster was unbeatable.

So that’s the four Nominations for the Sports Writers’ Player of the Year Award, Odsonne Edoaurd, Callum McGregor, Lawrence Shankland and Morelos.

The nominations for the Sports Writers’ Manager of the Year are Neil Lennon of Celtic, Motherwell’s Steven Robinson, Livingston’s Gary Holt, and Dick Campbell of Arbroath – with the glaring omission of Steven Gerrard, who had yet to win a league title as a player or manager and has now completed two trophyless seasons in charge of the new club at Ibrox.

Ali McCann of St Johnstone, Lewis Ferguson of Aberdeen, Celtic target Aaron Hickey of Hearts and Motherwell’s Allan Campbell are the young player of the year nominees.

The winners will be announced in a few weeks time. Scotland’s top goalscorer Odsonne Edoaurd must surely be the outstanding nominee for their Player of the Year and Neil Lennon must surely be the Sports Writers’ Manager of the Year.