Spurs Women’s Skinner, Neville nominated for WSL yearly awards

The dust has barely settled on the conclusion of the 2021-22 Women’s Super League season, but already nominations are coming out for WSL yearly awards. And for the first time ever, Tottenham Hotspur Women are in the frame for two of them. Today, the WSL announced that Spurs Women manager Rehanne Skinner was nominated for WSL Manager of the Year, while fullback Ashleigh Neville picked up a nomination for Player of the Year.

The nomination for Skinner represents the amazing improvement Spurs Women have had from last season. Tottenham smashed their previous best record for points and wins in a WSL season in only their third year in the top flight, finishing fifth despite picking up only one win in their last eight matches.

Skinner shares the nomination with Chelsea’s title-winning manager Emma Hayes and first-year Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall.

The stats for both Hayes and Eidevall are gaudy, which makes sense as Chelsea and Arsenal were the two best teams in the league by a fair distance and their battle for the league title went down to the final day. However, Skinner may have a puncher’s chance for this award — Spurs engineered a major improvement from last season and picked up their first ever win over a “Big Four” club when they knocked off Manchester City early in the season. She’s clearly a talented manager and has done very good work at Tottenham with far fewer resources.

For Neville’s Player of the Season nomination... well, it’s an honor just to be nominated. Neville shares the award with eight other players, all of whom were on clubs that finished above Spurs in the table.

But while Neville had an unquestionably good season, this award is Sam Kerr’s. The Chelsea striker and Australian international took the league by storm, scoring 20 goals in 20 games to win the Golden Boot. She was magnificent, and I can’t see how any other player wins this award over her.

You can vote for the Manager of the Season and Player of the Season awards now, and fan voting will be one factor in who takes the awards.