Greening takes midfield place

I suspected he might win this one comfortably but for much of the time it was closer than I imagined and with some unlikely players coming up in second and third place. In the end Greening took the first midfield place with 26.7% of the vote.

That was just 6.5% above the surprise of seeing Brian Howard in second place. Howard has a £10 million price tag on his head which is now causing a dispute with his club Barnsley, and he had his best season yet for them although that was in a struggling side near the bottom of the league.

Howard's 20.2% was way above third place where there was a battle between Ben Watson of Crystal Palace and Wolves' Seyi George Olifinjana. It was Olifinjana that finished the higher at the end with 12.7% of the vote.

Baggies captain Greening has been at the Hawthorns for four years after Gary Megson paid Middlesbrough £1.25 million for his services. Current boss Tony Mowbray gave him a new three year deal last summer and appointed him as captain. Greening has responded by leading the side to the FA Cup semi-finals as well as to the title. He missed just one game, a cup tie at Coventry through suspension, all season.

There's no doubt his passing qualities will be a great benefit to this Clarets Mad team and now we look for a second central midfielder to play alongside him. Those fifteen who were in the previous poll have now been placed in a second poll and voting us underway for that last midfield slot.

The players selected to date are: Adrian Basso (Bristol City), Bradley Orr (Bristol City), Ryan Shawcross (Stoke), Danny Shittu (Watford), Paul Robinson (West Brom), Liam Lawrence (Stoke), Jonathan Greening (West Brom) and Joe Ledley (Cardiff).