Jack Hinshelwood voted WAB December 2023 Brighton Player of the Month

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

“We have to turn the problems into opportunities.” Those were the words of Roberto De Zerbi as the Albion’s injury list went from bad to worse. And nobody grasped the opportunity in December 2023 better than WAB Brighton Player of the Month Jack Hinshelwood.

With all of Joel Veltman, Tariq Lamptey, Pervis Estupinan, James Milner, Solly March and Igor Julio injured at various points, 18-year-old Hinshelwood found himself thrown into the first team picture at full back with stunning results.

His first senior goal arrived in the 2-1 win over Brentford. He then followed that up with a superb display as Tottenham were blown away 4-2 at the Amex, getting on the scoresheet once again.

Brighton were without Kaoru Mitoma, Simon Adingra and the rest of their wingers for the clash with Spurs. De Zerbi responded by ditching his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation and moving to a midfield diamond.

The new approach meant added responsibility on the shoulders of the full backs to not only defend but also provide width going forward.

Hinshelwood rose to the challenge with a performance more akin of a Premier League veteran of over 300 games rather than a teenager making just the fifth start of his professional career.

De Zerbi labelled him “the son of Pascal Gross” in a recent interview, pointing out the similarities in how both players can switch from full back to midfield seamlessly through brilliant footballing intelligence. Praise does come much higher for a Brighton player than being compared to Der Kaiser.

The Hinshelwood hype is not just restricted to Sussex. The Times ran a December 2023 article about four generations of the Hinshelwood family playing professionally for Brighton, Crystal Palace and Chelsea amongst others.

In it, Adam Hinshelwood produced quite possible the best Albion-related quote ever spoken: “I’ve gone from Adam Hinshelwood, the former Brighton player, to ‘Look, that’s Jack’s dad. He’s the one who scored the really bad own goal.’”

Jack has already become immensely popular with Brighton supporters. Imagine the love and respect if he were to follow in his father’s footsteps and put an attempted 30 yard back pass beyond Jason Steele or Bart Verbruggen.

Second place in the December Player of the Month poll went to Gross. To watch Der Kaiser and Hinshelwood dovetailing against Brentford was something special – not many Premier League teams will win a game this season in which all their goals are scored by full backs.

Having played at left back versus the Bees, Gross went onto feature at right back, holding midfield and as a number 10 over the remainder of the month.

We could sit here for hours and wax lyrical about Gross. Instead, we are going to let his December returns do the talking.

Assist against Brentford. Goal against Brentford. Assist against Burnley. Assist against Marseille. Assist against Crystal Palace. Five goal involvements in seven matches. Phenomenal.

In third was Joao Pedro, who scored four times through December to move full steam ahead towards the almost-mythical 20 goal mark.

An 88th minute winner against Marseille saw Pedro end the group stage of the Europa League as leading goal scorer.

Domestically, Pedro produced a bullet header at Chelsea to showcase his aerial ability. He then converted two penalties against Spurs to maintain his 100 percent record from the spot, also claiming an assist in the same game.