Olivia Smith wins PFA Women’s Young Player of the Year for the second season running

Olivia Smith has won the PFA Women’s Young Player of the Year award for the second season in a row.

Because it feels like ages since Smith joined Arsenal, it’s easy to forget that she’s won those awards while playing for two different clubs.

She first received the honour following her season with Liverpool. Smith arrived in England and immediately looked like one of the WSL’s most exciting young players. She scored goals, caused problems for defenders and ended the campaign by winning the award.

Arsenal then paid £1 million to sign her. At the time, the transfer made Smith the first million-pound player in women’s football.

Suddenly, almost every conversation about Olivia Smith came with a price attached to it that she hadn’t chosen.

Olivia Smith didn’t choose the £1 million transfer fee

That’s always felt strange to me. We discuss transfer fees as though the player personally walked into the boardroom and decided how much she should cost.

Smith had nothing to do with the fee. Arsenal and Liverpool agreed it. She just had to arrive afterwards and play football while everybody else kept mentioning it.

A year later, her fellow professionals have voted for her again, and that’s quite an achievement.

You can win a young player award because people are excited about what you might become in the future. Winning it twice suggests that the player you are right now is already pretty damn good.

A perfect response against Charlton

The timing of the award was slightly ridiculous.

Smith attended the PFA awards on Tuesday night and collected the Women’s Young Player of the Year prize. She then returned to Arsenal, got onto the pitch against Charlton on Wednesday and smashed the ball into the top corner from outside the box.

It was a very "mic-drop" way to confirm the award!

What comes next for Olivia Smith at Arsenal?

The next stage is particularly interesting because the conversation changes once you’ve been at Arsenal for a full season.

Smith isn’t the exciting new young signing anymore. Much of that attention has now shifted to Lisa Baum.

We already know what Smith can do individually. We’ve seen her speed, strength and directness, as well as the way she can strike the ball. Now it’s about how those qualities connect with the teammates around her.

That’s probably why Renée Slegers’ constant use of the word “connections” keeps coming back into everything we’re seeing during pre-season.

You don’t want Olivia Smith to become less Olivia Smith. You want Arsenal to work out how to make what she does fit even more naturally into the rest of the team.

Two PFA Women’s Young Player of the Year awards in two seasons isn’t a bad place to start.