The joy to watch star, a player with world at feet and indispensable man at heart of difficult Swansea City decision

Voting has commenced for Swansea City’s player of the season award and picking a winner won’t be easy.

The Swans are sat in mid-table following a transitional season which has had its fair share of ups and downs. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of candidates for the prestigious award, with several players excelling under Russell Martin. It’s genuinely difficult to decide on a single player who is most deserving of the gong. Any club’s top scorer is bound to feature quite prominently in a player of the season discussion and Joel Piroe will rightly be many people’s favourite.

His first season at the Swansea.com Stadium has been a resounding success. At the time of writing, he has scored 20 goals in all competitions and they have come in all shapes and sizes, from cool one-on-one finishes to long-range thunderbolts. He’s also played an important role in creating goals for others. He has looked equally brilliant both as a lone striker and as an attacking midfielder, and oozes class in everything he does.

Piroe has been a joy to watch and a vital figure for the Swans since joining from PSV last summer, but that won’t necessarily guarantee him the prize. His partner in crime, Jamie Paterson, has also been a critically important player for Swansea during his debut campaign at the club.

The former Bristol City and Nottingham Forest man took to life under Martin like a duck to water. His silky feet and eye for a pass have rendered him indispensable in a squad which has otherwise looked low on creativity for much of the season.

Eight assists makes him one of the most productive creators in the division and he is arguably the player Swansea struggle most to replace when he’s not in the side. An unsavoury contract dispute