Malachy Clerkin: David Clifford should win Footballer of the Year but it’s an extremely marginal call

It is, of course, an excellent thing that there is a debate over whether Footballer of the Year should go to Ryan O’Donoghue or David Clifford. For one thing, the very fact that anybody is able to get within an ass’s roar of Clifford is an achievement in and of itself. O’Donoghue isn’t competing with Clifford in a down year, after all. He’s matching him stride for stride in one of the Kerry maestro’s best ever seasons.

Clifford is the supreme footballer of the age, we know that. He had a championship this summer in which he scored not just the most overall but also the most from play and the most goals. He jumped from seventh to second in the all-time scoring charts at the age of just 27. We will be boring younger generations about him for decades to come.