Alisson, Trippier, Odegaard, Haaland scoop positional Player of the Season awards

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 13 June 2023

Alisson Becker, Kieran Trippier, Martin Odegaard and Erling Braut Haaland are named the best players of 2022-23 in each of their positions in the Sports Mole Writers' Awards.

Players from Liverpool, Newcastle United, Arsenal and Manchester City have won the positional awards in the end-of-season Sports Mole Writers' Awards for 2022-23.

Liverpool shot-stopper Alisson Becker narrowly claimed the Goalkeeper of the Season award with 35% of our reporters' votes, edging out Newcastle's Nick Pope by just one point.

The Brazilian was one of few Reds players to emerge from an otherwise disappointing campaign with his reputation unharmed, with only Manchester United's David de Gea keeping more clean sheets.

Only three keepers made more saves than Liverpool's number one too, seeing him fend off competition from Pope, David Raya and the winner of our Readers' Award for best goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.

Our reporters were in agreement with our readers when it came to the Premier League's best defender of 2022-23, though, with Kieran Trippier a clear winner in that category.

The Newcastle full-back took 50% of the votes from our writers, having created the second-most chances and delivered by far the most crosses of any player in the league this season.

Newcastle United's Kieran Trippier on August 6, 2022 © Reuters

Manchester City's John Stones and William Saliba of Arsenal finished joint-second in the voting, while Ruben Dias was the only other defender to garner any picks.

There was also a fairly clear winner in the Midfielder of the Season category, with Martin Odegaard collecting 55% of the votes following a league campaign which saw him score 15 goals and create eight more in 37 outings.

Kevin De Bruyne was named the best midfielder by our readers, but the Manchester City talisman had to settle for second place from our reporters with 25% of the votes, while his teammate Ilkay Gundogan and Manchester United's Casemiro were the other midfielders to collect votes.

Unsurprisingly, the clearest winner was Erling Braut Haaland for the Premier League Forward of the Season, taking a whopping 95% of the votes following a record-breaking campaign which saw him score an unprecedented 36 goals in a single campaign.

Haaland netted 52 times in 53 games across all competitions to help Man City win the treble - a tally which also helped to see him unanimously voted the overall Premier League Player of the Season in our Writers' Awards.

Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane, who equalled his best-ever scoring season with 30 despite playing in an underperforming Spurs team, was the only other striker to win a vote in the Forward of the Season category.