Sam plays it again

Last updated : 27 February 2014 By Tony Scholes

Sam VokesWhat a season he's having. Having seen his captain Jason Shackell win the August player of the month award, he followed up by claiming first place in September, October and November and then, after Scott Arfield took the prize in December, he shared the honour with fellow striker Danny Ings in January.

He went into Saturday's game against Forest with a chance of winning the February award. Ings led the way and all of Dean Marney, Shackell and Michael Duff were in front of him. It needed an exceptional performance from him to climb above those four and that's exactly what he gave.

It's fair to say he won the man of the match vote by some distance. He polled 54.5% of the vote with right-back Kieran Trippier, who set up Vokes's first goal, coming in second with 15.0%. Duff was third with 7.5% and just behind him a 7.2% share gave David Jones fourth place.

He doubled up by winning the player ratings and his rating of 9.31 out of 10 was the highest this season. Ings previously had the highest with 9.10 in the home win against QPR in October but that was beaten twice with Trippier taking second place on Saturday with a rating of 9.14.

The midfield grabbed the next two places. Arfield was third with a rating of 8.43, just ahead of the 8.38 out of 10 that won fourth place for Jones.

The last time a Burnley player had a rating higher than 9.31 was last season when Charlie Austin recorded 9.49 out of 10 after he scored his second hat trick of the season in the 3-3 home draw against Sheffield Wednesday.

For the Forest game, Vokes won 10 points towards the Clarets Mad Player of the Year. Trippier collected four points and there were two points for all of Arfield, Duff and Jones.

Besides landing Vokes another player of the month, beating Ings by three points, it has also enabled him to stretch his lead at the top of the player of the year table to 16 points ahead of Shackell with Ings in third place a further 17 points behind.

The next man of the match vote will be for the Derby game and will be available within an hour of the final whistle on Saturday.

Meanwhile voting us underway for the February Goal of the Month. It is available via the front page or the VOTING POLLS page and you can cast your vote until the end of tomorrow (Friday).

The result for the Forest game is below along with the Clarets Mad Player of the Month result for February and the current Player of the Year Table.

MAN OF THE MATCH

54.5% - Sam Vokes
15.0% - Kieran Trippier
7.5% - Michael Duff
7.2% - David Jones
6.5% - Scott Arfield
2.6% - Dean Marney
2.1% - Ben Mee
1.0% - Tom Heaton, Jason Shackell & Keith Treacy
0.8% - Danny Ings & Michael Kightly

PLAYER RATINGS

9.31 - Sam Vokes
9.14 - Kieran Trippier
8.43 - Scott Arfield
8.38 - David Jones
8.26 - Jason Shackell
8.05 - Dean Marney
8.00 - Ben Mee
7.90 - Michael Duff
7.86 - Tom Heaton
7.50 - Danny Ings
6.95 - Keith Treacy
6.69 - Michael Kightly

CLARETS MAD FEBRUARY PLAYER OF THE MONTH

21: Sam Vokes
18: Danny Ings
16: Michael Duff
15: Dean Marney & Jason Shackell
13: Kieran Trippier
7: David Jones
4: Tom Heaton
2: Scott Arfield

CLARETS MAD PLAYER OF THE YEAR

138: Sam Vokes
122: Jason Shackell
105: Danny Ings
86: Kieran Trippier
71: Scott Arfield
65: Michael Duff
57: Dean Marney
55: David Jones
49: Tom Heaton
33: Ben Mee
28: Keith Treacy
9: Kevin Long
8: Alex Cisak
7: Michael Kightly & Junior Stanislas
3: Danny Lafferty