Dowman, Ngumoha PFA nominations criminal ahead of Bournemouth, Newcastle and West Ham stars | OneFootball

At the end of a week in which Anthony Gordon gave his first Barcelona press conference in word-perfect Spanish and Ibrahima Konate displayed his enviable emotional intelligence in opening up on his battle with depression this season, we welcome evidence that the all footballers are in fact, as they always were, utter morons.

Voted for by approximately 5000 members of the Professional Footballers’ Association, the six nominees for the PFA Young Player of the Year have been announced and it turns out footballers either don’t know anything about football or have a far more blinkered Big Club view than you, us or even the majority of the fans of those talent-hoovering behemoths.

Manchester City stars Rayan Cherki and Nico O’Reilly fully merit their nominations, as does Junior Kroupi having broken the record for the most Premier League goals (13) in a debut season for a teenager to draw the attention of European giants this summer.

Kobbie Mainoo is maybe slightly fortunate having been denied half a season of football by Ruben Amorim, but he has been excellent under Michael Carrick to force his way back into the England squad for the World Cup.

Has he had a better season than Bournemouth’s Alex Scott? There’s an argument to be made even upon Mainoo’s inclusion that there’s an element of Big Club prejudice at play and that argument becomes almost entirely one-sided thanks to thousands of very daft footballers picking Liverpool’s Rio Ngumoha and Arsenal child Max Dowman as the fifth and sixth nominees.

Ngumoha has been a beacon of hope in a depressing season for Liverpool; often the Reds’ greatest attacking threat when he was playing despite them splashing the cash on Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz in the summer and retaining one of the Premier League’s greatest-ever forwards, Mohamed Salah, for what turned out to be one more season.

‘When he was playing’ is the operative phrase. Ngumoha started just five Premier League games and featured for a total of 551 minutes, scoring twice and contributing one assist. Rayan joined Bournemouth in January, got five goals and two assists in 1120 minutes and is now preparing for the World Cup with Brazil.

But the absurdity of Ngumoha’s nomination pales in comparison to Max Dowman’s.

We’re in no way denying the talent of either player. We hope and fully expect both to merit inclusions in such lists in future. But not when, as is the case with Dowman, the selection comes on the back of 153 minutes of Premier League football.

Newcastle’s Lewis Hall played over 2000 minutes. West Ham star Mateus Fernandes played over 3000 minutes and is now being tipped for an £80m transfer this summer.

Dowman essentially scored that goal against Everton and that’s it. Significant and very memorable though that moment was, he’s had nothing like the impact of Scott, Rayan, Hall, Fernandes or at least a dozen further excluded players.

Players who only have themselves and their fellow professionals to blame for selecting their nominees for PFA Young Player of the Year seemingly on the basis of little more than social media impressions.