Why Khadija Shaw already won the WSL Player of the Season debate

The Inevitable Nomination

The 2025-26 Women's Super League Football Awards are creeping up. The eight-strong shortlist for Player of the Season is officially out. To the surprise of absolutely nobody with functioning eyes, Manchester City’s Khadija Shaw is leading the pack.

We all knew this was coming. You could have written her name in pen on this list back in October. She has spent the better part of the last eight months bullying defenders and scoring ridiculous goals. She is essentially carrying City’s title hopes on her back.

When you watch her play, you aren't just watching a good striker having a good season. You are watching a generational talent operating at the absolute peak of her powers.

But here is the thing about award season in football. It makes people overthink. The voters look at an eight-player shortlist and suddenly feel the need to be contrarian.

They want to vote for the deep-lying playmaker who completed a lot of passes. They want to vote for the gritty defender from a team that overachieved. They want to craft a narrative proving they see the game on a deeper level than the rest of us.

It is exhausting. Let's strip away the pretension right now. Khadija Shaw is the best player in the league. Full stop. Anyone arguing otherwise is just trying to get engagement on social media.

The Anatomy of Dominance

If you want to understand why Shaw is so effective, you have to look past the raw goal numbers. Yes, the stats are absurd. But the stats don't tell you what it feels like to defend her. She is a nightmare matchup.

Most strikers in the WSL fall into one of two categories. They are either rapid penalty-box poachers who run off the shoulder of the last defender, or they are traditional target players who hold the ball up. Shaw is both.

She has the physical strength to post up center-backs like an NBA power forward. But she also has the technical grace to turn and smash a shot into the top corner before the goalkeeper even reacts.

Defending her requires a perfect game. If you drop off and give her space, she will punish you from distance. If you get tight and try to disrupt her touch, she will simply roll you and leave you on the floor.

Teams have tried double-teaming her. They have tried dropping a defensive midfielder into the backline just to track her runs. Nothing really works. She processes the game faster than the people trying to stop her.

That is the mark of a true elite forward. She isn't just reacting to the game. She is dictating terms.

The Manchester City Problem

But we need to have a serious conversation about Manchester City. Shaw's brilliance is undeniable. But it is also masking some massive structural flaws in Gareth Taylor's team.

Gareth Taylor has built a squad packed with international talent. Yet the tactical execution on the pitch so frequently looks like a desperate scramble to find Shaw. When you watch City try to build out from the back, there is an uncomfortable urgency to bypass the midfield entirely.

Instead of progressing the ball through intricate triangles or utilizing the half-spaces, the default mechanism is a hopeful long ball directed toward Shaw’s chest. It is frankly insulting to the technical quality of the rest of the squad.

The wingers, players who should be dynamic threats cutting inside and attacking the box, are often reduced to mere crossing machines. Their entire purpose is to serve the focal point. While Shaw is more than capable of turning those crosses into goals, it makes the team one-dimensional.

We saw this exact scenario play out multiple times this season. When a well-drilled defense decides to sit deep and completely eliminate the space behind the defensive line, City’s game plan disintegrates.

When the tactical plan fails, you see the same repeating patterns:

• Midfielders refusing to play progressive passes through the center.
• Wingers firing desperate, hopeful crosses from deep positions.
• Shaw dropping all the way to the halfway line just to get a touch of the ball.

If you put two physically imposing center-backs on Shaw and instruct your fullbacks to block the crosses, City suddenly look out of ideas. It is a damning indictment of the coaching staff.

They have been handed a generational attacking talent. Their only strategy is to run her into the ground. If Shaw suffers a dip in form or takes a knock, the entire season collapses.

You cannot build a sustainable dynasty on the shoulders of one player. No matter how broad those shoulders are.

The Illusion of Competition

The 2025-26 Women's Super League Football Awards are supposed to be a celebration of the league's growing depth. We are constantly told about how competitive the WSL has become. We hear how the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams is shrinking.

The sheer existence of an eight-strong shortlist is presented as evidence of this parity. The organizing committee wants us to believe that there are eight distinct players who could legitimately walk away with this trophy.

That is a fantastic marketing spin. It looks great on a press release. But anyone who actually watches the matches knows it is complete nonsense.

The shortlist could be cut down to three names and we would still be wasting our time talking about the other two. Shaw is the undisputed alpha of this season.

I understand the need for pageantry. We need the glitzy award ceremonies. We need the social media graphics and the endless fan debates. It drives engagement and keeps the sport in the news cycle.

But let's not lie to ourselves in the process. The gap between Khadija Shaw and the second-best player in the league this season is a chasm. The voters know it. The opposing managers know it.

The defenders who have been tormented by her since August definitely know it. Creating artificial suspense around this award is doing a disservice to the historic nature of her campaign.

Breaking Down the Rest of the List

Let's look at the rest of this eight-player shortlist. As the BBC reported, the field is finally set. While the other seven names haven't all been plastered across the headlines today, we know the usual archetypes that make the cut.

There is always the standout Chelsea player who gets nominated by default because their team is always near the top. There is the Arsenal midfielder who had a great three-month stretch before picking up an injury.

And there is the obligatory goalkeeper who kept a lot of clean sheets behind a rock-solid defense. Are they good players? Absolutely. Do they belong on the same tier as Shaw this season? Not a chance.

The problem with these awards is that voters often confuse team success with individual brilliance. A player can have a solid season for a title-winning team and suddenly be viewed as a Player of the Season candidate.

Shaw is doing the heavy lifting. She is the reason people tune into WSL matches on a Sunday afternoon. She provides the box-office moments.

You can appreciate a perfectly timed interception or a great tactical foul. But goals pay the bills. Goals change games. Shaw provides them at a rate nobody else can match.

The Striker Bias in Modern Football

Now, I know what the purists are saying. They argue that the Player of the Season award is historically biased toward goalscorers. They aren't wrong.

Defenders and defensive midfielders rarely get the respect they deserve in these votes. The people who prevent goals don't get the highlight reels. They don't get the glossy magazine covers.

It is a systemic issue in how we talk about football. We overvalue the final touch and undervalue the ten passes that led to it.

If a center-back plays a flawless game for 89 minutes but makes one mistake, they are a villain. If a striker does nothing for 89 minutes but scores a tap-in, they are the hero.

But even acknowledging that bias, Shaw's case is bulletproof. She isn't just a beneficiary of a flawed voting system. She is actively subverting it by being so overwhelmingly dominant that you have to vote for her.

She is not a poacher stealing headlines. She is the engine of her team. The bias toward attackers usually frustrates me. But this year, it is entirely justified. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one.

Looking Ahead to a Massive Summer

The timing of this announcement adds another layer of intrigue. We are just 27 days away from the FIFA World Cup kickoff on June 11.

The entire footballing world is about to pivot from domestic drama to international spectacle. Players heading into a major tournament want momentum. They want to arrive in peak form.

For Shaw, this nomination is validation of a grueling domestic campaign. But it also puts a massive target on her back.

Every defender she faces this summer will know exactly who she is. They know what she can do. There are no secrets anymore.

Her form in the WSL has broadcast her quality to the entire globe. The pressure will be immense. Can she carry this incredible club form into the pressure cooker of a World Cup?

That is the real test. Winning WSL Player of the Season is a massive achievement. But translating that dominance to the international stage is what turns great players into legends.

She has the physical tools. She has the mentality. Now she just has to execute.

The Final Verdict

Let's talk about the pure entertainment value she brings. Football is fundamentally an entertainment product. We pay for tickets, we subscribe to streaming services, and we spend our weekends glued to the television because we want to feel something.

Shaw delivers that visceral thrill consistently. She doesn't just score goals; she scores the kind of goals that make you instantly text your friends. She embarrasses professional defenders.

She hits strikes that look like they were fired from a cannon. In a league that can occasionally get bogged down in overly cautious, possession-based tactical standoffs, she is pure, unadulterated chaos.

That entertainment factor has to count for something when we are voting for the Player of the Season. The award shouldn't just be a math equation based on expected goals and pass completion rates.

It should be about who defined the season. Who was the main character of the WSL this year? The answer is incredibly obvious.

When the envelopes are opened and the winner is announced, it has to be Khadija Shaw. If it is anyone else, we need to demand a recount.

This isn't about disrespecting the other seven players on the shortlist. They had great seasons. They should be proud of their nominations. But there are levels to this game.

Shaw is operating on a completely different plane right now. She has been the most entertaining, the most decisive, and the most frightening player in the league.

Manchester City fans should enjoy this while it lasts. You rarely get to watch a player hit this kind of peak.

Every time she steps onto the pitch, there is a genuine sense of anticipation. You know she is going to do something that makes you jump out of your seat.

That is what football is supposed to be about. The tactics, the analytics, the endless debates—they all fade away when a player like Shaw gets the ball at her feet.

Give her the trophy. End the debate. Let's move on.