Six contenders for Chesterfield's 2024 Player of the Year

Fans have been voting ahead of the awards event at the SMH Group Stadium on April 17.

Let’s take a look at the likely contenders…

Tom Naylor

The favourite for the award and he gets our vote. The midfielder has chipped in with a magnificent 13 goals and six assists which is his best-ever season statistically. The 32-year-old has started every league game except one and has shown a tremendous level of consistency. It is not just his goals and assists which have impressed – his work-rate, leadership and ability to control a game have also caught the eye. He is the best central midfielder in the league, in our opinion. He must surely be one of the club’s best-ever free signings. And having played in the Championship as recently as last season, there are no doubts he will be able to make the step up to League Two. There will be plenty more fistbumps in front of the Kop to come.

Will Grigg

His 25 goals have helped fire Chesterfield to the title and promotion. He went five games – his longest run without a goal – before bagging 18 in his last 24 appearances before his season was cut-short due to a hamstring injury. We all knew the Northern Irishman would score goals but what we probably didn’t appreciate, before his arrival, was how good he plays the lone striker role. He is not the biggest of forwards but he is super strong and makes the ball stick. His timing of his runs, his sharp movement in the box and the way he uses his body to hold off defenders is under-rated.

Jamie Grimes

The skipper has led by example and it was fitting that he scored Chesterfield’s 100th league goal in their title-clinching match. Before being sent off on Boxing Day he had started every league of the season and he continued his fantastic record once his suspension was served. As well as being dominant in the air, he had had the responsibility of getting the Spireites playing out from the back and has improved his quickness across the grass thanks to some specialist work he did in pre-season.

Liam Mandeville

Last year’s winner of this award has had another productive campaign with seven goals and a remarkable 19 assists. His goals are slightly down on last term – but as he has rightly pointed out – he has spent some of this season at right-back! Chesterfield have scored more than 30 goals from corners and free-kicks and Mandeville’s deliveries have played a huge part in that. With 41 league appearances, he is a player who is always available and runs himself into the ground week in week out.

Mike Jones

An unlikely winner purely on the basis that some of the others have had ridiculously brilliant seasons numbers-wise and played more often. But he also has his own terrific stat in that in the 21 starts he has made this season, Chesterfield have only lost twice. He wasn’t in the side at the start of the campaign but it soon became obvious how vital he is. Another one who covers every blade of grass and plays every game like it’s his last.

Armando Dobra

He made a slowish start by his standards after not scoring until the ninth game of the season but has made up by collecting 11 goals and 10 assists. He has got better and better as the campaign progressed and was exceptional on the day the title was secured. Paul Cook and his staff have managed him really well. After 27 league appearances last year, the aim was to get more games out of him, and they have done that with 43 in all competitions.