Championship status made it hard for youngsters to thrive

CONGRATULATIONS to Darko Gyabi on winning Plymouth Argyle’s Young Player-of-the-Year trophy for the 2024/25 season.

- Chris Errington

The on-loan midfielder missed only three Championship matches all season and two of them were because he could not play against his parent club Leeds United.

That shows you how well regarded he was, first by Wayne Rooney and later Miron Muslic. Gyabi did receive criticism at times from some of the Green Army for his performances but, it should be remembered, he only turned 21 in February so is still very early into his career and will be learning all the time.

Gyabi is not the finished article and given that he has already played for England at under-21 level a couple of times there is clearly plenty of ability there to work on and improve his all-round game.

It is the third consecutive season that a loan player has won Argyle’s Young Player-of-the-Year award, after Bali Mumba in 2022/23 and then Ashley Phillips. The last time an Argyle academy product picked up the trophy was in 2021/22 when it went to Adam Randell.