Doyle did a write up on all the guys he excluded from his ballot. Every NYCFC eligible player is on it.
Yes, this is the list that Cavan Sullivan is on
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Shore and Reid are in the "High-Upside Kids Who Haven’t Shown Enough" section.
Fernandez, Ojeda and Ilenic are in the "Fallen Off" section. Doyle had predicted Ojeda would win 2025 best U-22 a year earlier and is probably his biggest disappointment, but he likes Fernandez even less because he is worthless off the ball. It's worth reading all of his blurbs about the NYC guys, and his clip of Fernandez killing an attack by standing around.
As for the overall vote, you have a stable of writers who are paid to write about a 30 team league but only part time. They're going to take short cuts which means relying on stats. This year Fernandez has uniformly better stats than Ojeda in Goals, G+A, xG, xA, and xG+xA. Ojeda has more Assists, close at 5-4. Minutes played are only 67 apart. Ojeda has somewhat better progression stats, which is no surprise, but If you don't watch NYC enough it's not even a debate. Fernandez is clearly if superficially better. Doyle watches enough to know.
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Also the vote and Doyle's article were done just before the RB game where Ojeda looked so good. I doubt it changes the results but worth noting.
I think it's ironic that Jansen was hired in significant part to develop the U22 signings, and it's really hard to say that's been a success, but winning understandably overrides all.