Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema has won the Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year award by the narrowest of margins, just a single vote, after last year missing out by the same margin.
She was pushed all the way in the voting by Chelsea’s Bethany England and follows Lionesses forwards Nikita Parris (2019) and Fran Kirby (2018), to be named the third FWA Women’s Footballer of the Year.
Chelsea’s Norwegian talent Guro Reiten and Lyon’s England defender Lucy Bronze were joint third, just ahead of Manchester City and England Women’s World Cup 2019 Bronze Boot winner Ellen White.
The voting panel also gave special praise to both Steph Houghton and Lauren Hemp from Manchester City, the Chelsea pair of Erin Cuthbert and Sophie Ingle, Rachel Furness, Beth Mead of Arsenal, Lauren James of Manchester United and Chloe Kelly from Everton.
The 23-year-old Miedema was the Women’s Super League’s top scorer this season with 16 goals in 14 appearances, including a double hat-trick in Arsenal’s 11-1 drubbing of Bristol City in December. She is also currently her country’s leading goalscorer with 60 goals, and also helped Holland reach last year’s World Cup final.
Runner up England helped Chelsea win this season’s WSL title after the Blues were declared champions on a points-per-game basis and moved above Manchester City, who were top of the table at the time when the league was halted back in March due to the pandemic. The 21-year-old had another outstanding season for Chelsea, scoring 21 goals in all competitions in their 2019/20 double winning campaign.
Bronze, who earlier this week signed a two month contract extension until August 31st at Lyon to enable them to compete in the Champions League when it resumes later in the summer, has also agreed terms to join Manchester City ahead of the new Women’s Super League season. It is also understood that Alex Greenwood has decided to join City along with former Everton forward Kelly.
City, who finished runners up to Chelsea in this seasons truncated campaign will start the new season with no less than 12 regular England internationals including Captain Houghton and England’s most capped player Jill Scott.
