Dan Burn voted WAB January 2022 Brighton Player of the Month

February 8, 2022February 8, 2022 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

What a nice bunch us Albion fans are. As a parting gift to Dan Burn upon his £13 million move to Newcastle United, you lot have voted him as your WAB Brighton Player of the Month for January 2022 with nearly 50 percent of the ballot.

It is of course a deserved award. Burn had been in outstanding form throughout January as Brighton made light of the unavailability at various points of Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster and Shane Duffy to sail through the month unbeaten.

Those absentees meant that Burn found himself deployed as a central defender in all five of the Albion’s fixtures, no matter if Graham Potter opted for a back three or a back four.

This resulted in him putting in his most impressive set of performances since winning Player of the Month in August 2019, coincidentally the last time he had a run of games as a central defender.

Whisper it quietly, but Potter might have gone down the wrong route by spending much of the last three years using Burn as the tallest left wing back in footballing history.

An excellent January 2022 for Burn got underway with him scoring the second Brighton goal in the 3-2 win at Everton, helping the Albion to an historic first ever victory at Goodison Park.

He saved the best for his final home appearance as a Seagull, although nobody knew it would goodbye at the time as the bid-out-of-the-blue from Tyneside was still two weeks away.

Having marked Romelu Lukaku out of proceedings when the Albion drew 1-1 at Stamford Bridge three weeks earlier, Burn was even more formidable up against the £97 million centre forward as the European Champions were this time held at the Amex by the same score.

The bad news for Lukaku is that he will have to face Burn for a third time this season when Newcastle visit West London in mid-March.

Every Brighton fan will wish Burn well in that and with his Toon career in general – except for when the Seagulls go to St James’ Park on Saturday 5th March.

For being a consummate professional, Burn deserves the chance to live the dream and play for his boyhood club.

It is just a shame that the doubling of his wages which sets him up for life is being paid by a regime who murders critics, publicly beheads people and locks up and castrates members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Second place behind Burn was Marc Cucurella, who continually finishes in the top three but is still yet to win a Player of the Month award since his summer move from Getafe.

Cucurella’s arrival into proceedings from the bench at West Brom in the FA Cup helped Brighton come from 1-0 behind to see off their Championship hosts 2-1 in extra time.

He followed that up by covering every blade of grass in the 1-1 home draw with Crystal Palace. Cucurella was literally everywhere, somehow even popping up on the right wing in the first half to create a good opportunity for Leandro Trossard.

Pundits are already advising some of the biggest clubs in the country to get their chequebooks out for him in the summer. Paul Merson has been particularly vocal in his belief that Chelsea should sign Cucurella.

Whilst all the talk is about holding onto Yves Bissouma, Tariq Lamptey and Adam Webster, if Cucurella keeps putting in the level of performance he has throughout 2021-22 then the Albion may have a fight on their hands to hold onto his services too.

Alexis Mac Allister found himself in third spot in what felt like a watershed month for the Argentine. Potter is not short of midfield options and that has meant Mac Allister spending his fair share of time picking splinters out of his arse whilst sat on the bench.

In January though, he made himself almost undroppable. Two strikes of the highest quality at Everton showed that maybe Brighton do possess a midfielder who knows where the back of the net is and he followed that up with a set of dynamic showings in a slightly deeper role than that which he is used to.

Most promising of all has been the improvement in his set piece taking. Burn’s goal at Everton and Adam Webster’s equaliser against Chelsea both came from dangerous Mac Allister corners, helping to ease the burden on Pascal Gross who for too long now has been the only Albion player capable of delivering a threatening ball into the box.