Who are the unsung heroes of this season?

Now that we can wave goodbye to another Premier League season the attention can turn towards who we will sign and whether or not we'll splash the ash, sorry I mean cash!

It’s also time for various awards and accolades such as Player of the Year, Goal of the Season and so on to be decided. It's all much of a muchness though so I'd like to take an entirely different route. How about; Most Under-appreciated Player of the Year?

We have all had, at some point, a player that we have appreciated only for other fans to deride. The player that nobody notices but helps to get the job done basically. In my time we’ve had Darren Peacock - the only one that seemed to like defending in the Keegan team of the 90's, David Batty - no frills but we missed him no end when he was unavailable, and Gary Speed - another player you only really miss when they’ve gone.

I’ve always been a fan of the underdog, the one that no-one wanted to succeed. It's probably why I ended up supporting Newcastle! When looking at the current crop of players we are not exactly blessed with the players that we once were. The Ginola's, Shearer's and Beardsley's are long gone, but what we have got left is a good squad of honest hard working lads.

Due to the lack of inspirational quality and the hard-working nature of our side and the once in a lifetime relatively stress free end to the season, I thought that this would the perfect time to do an under-appreciated Player of the Year award.

To start with I’d like to give an honourable mention to two players who didn’t quite make my top five. Sol Campbell was brought in as cover and unfortunately proved that he was exactly that. I do believe however that his presence has not gone unnoticed and that he has helped us to look far more solid at the back with his experience on the training ground this campaign.

Secondly to Jonas Gutierrez. Can’t cross a ball to save his life but plays with a smile on his face and wins countless free kicks with his ‘European’ style of play. Now down to the all important top five.

5 – Danny Guthrie: Many people think that he is useless and brings nothing to the side but for me he is a consummate pro, never complains and is an incredibly tidy footballer. The boy can pass a ball and has shown this when given a run in the side. He has generally had the unenviable task of replacing the seemingly irreplaceable Cheik Tiote. He'll never be a star, but he is a very handy squad player.

4 – Joey Barton: Barton has always shown himself to be an able and intelligent player on the pitch, but for me it’s his improvements off the field that has catapulted him into the top five. He has became tea-total, settled down with his missus, and has also played the best football of his career supplying most of the balls early on for Andy Carroll's goals. His maturing off the field has allowed him to grow on the field, and he is growing with every game into a real leader. His attitude more than ability is what I feel has been under-appreciated.

3 – Mike Williamson: A Championship centre-half at best? Can’t get in the Portsmouth team? Not on his showing this season! Aside from games against Liverpool and Bolton (both times the whole side were poor) he has shown himself to be a real class act. I believe that his ability has allowed Fabricio Coloccini to flourish and look like a real top draw centre-half. Calls for Steven Taylor always echo when we lose but when Williamson has been missing I have felt we’ve really missed him. Under-appreciated? I think so.

2 – Kevin Nolan: What can I say? The man epitomises leadership. I like everything about Nolan, his attitude, organising team bonding events, his desire to become a legend on Tyneside. Even his day care centre in January was successful for a while!

Without his knack of being in the right place at the right time who knows where we would be this season. The one question I do wonder when watching Nolan is… Why has he always played midfield? A couple of pounds lighter and he’d be an exceptional front man. The role he played in holding the side together through the sacking of one boss and sale of Andy Carroll must not be under-appreciated.

1 -Danny Simpson: And finally we’ve reached what you’ve all been waiting for… Newcastle’s most under-appreciated player of the year… Danny Simpson. At the start of the season I felt our two main areas of weakness would be scoring goals and our right-back. Simpson seemed to me to be a decent full-back who had looked steady in the Championship but had also struggled in the Premier League previously.

I’ll admit that he’s still improving and has some flaws in his game (backing away from attackers) but if you’d said to me that there would be disappointment from fans and the player himself that he hadn’t received an England call-up I would have laughed in your face. I think this just shows how far the lad has come. He improves week on week and will only get better. He is, for me, the most under-appreciated player of this season.

As I said at the start of the article, the great thing about under-appreciation is that every fan can see player in a different way. Many will say that I’m an idiot for choosing such players, some will agree, but the beauty is that we all have an opinion and not one of us is really right when it comes to things like this.

I just hope that every year we can continue to have a list of players that have surprised us or done a job well enough that some of us can recognise it.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @Rorycn.

Note from Toonsy: Thank you to regular reader Rorycn for writing this article and giving us something to have a chat about.