Carlos Baleba voted WAB December 2024 Brighton Player of the Month

January 13, 2025January 13, 2025 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

December 2024 featured a ghastly run of six games without a single victory and precious little to cheer for Brighton fans – with the possible exception of the performances of Carlos Baleba.

Whilst many of his teammates veered from doing something decent one game to being total shite in the next, Baleba did at least put together a string of consistent showings. Which proved enough to earn him 50 percent of the vote as winner of the WAB December 2024 Brighton Player of the Month poll.

He scored a lovely goal in the 3-1 defeat at Fulham, hitting a crisp distance strike. Bernd Leno is one of the better goalkeepers in the Premier League and yet he was left grasping at thin air as the ball whistled past him.

Baleba then treated everyone at Craven Cottage to the Kazenga LuaLua gymnastics tribute which has become his scoring celebration calling card this season.

At Aston Villa, Baleba was the standout midfielder for either side as he dominated proceedings to ensure the hosts were never able to convincing play through the middle.

A far cry from the Albion’s previous visit to Villa Park when Robert De Zerbi’s side were carved open on their way to shipping six goals.

The only black mark against Baleba in December 2024 was a first half booking away against Leicester City for gesturing that a Foxes player should be yellow carded.

But even that moment of immaturity merely served to underline the importance of Baleba. He was subsequently substituted by Fabian Hurzeler at the interval to prevent yellow potentially turning to red.

Brighton had been in total control through the opening 45 minutes. The second half was somewhat of a different story and although the Seagulls increased their lead from 1-0 to 2-0 late in the day, they still only ended up drawing.

Two Foxes goals in the final 10 minutes meant that for a second time in the space of six weeks, the Albion had thrown away a two-goal advantage right at the death against relegation threatened opponents.

And both the Leicester and Wolves collapses occurred with Baleba withdrawn from the action. Whether those two draws end up being victories if Baleba played the full 90 is a very good pub debate to be had.

That first Brighton goal at the King Power Stadium was provided by Tariq Lamptey, who saunters into second in the WAB Brighton December 2024 Player of the Month award behind Baleba.

Pushing forward from right back, Lamptey collected a cross field pass from Pervis Estupinan before cutting inside. He then struck an effort which initially looked like a cross, only for it to bend viciously into the top corner from 30 yards.

Another spectacular goal followed against Villa, meaning Lamptey achieved the impressive feat of having two efforts nominated for December Premier League Goal of the Month.

Lamptey started a flowing pass move which swept from one end of Villa Park to the other, before ending it with a clinical finish to level the make it 2-2 with eight eight minutes remaining.

News on Lamptey’s future has gone quiet in recent weeks. He is out of contract this summer and therefore able to talk to foreign sides from January onwards over a summer free transfer.

More displays like those goal scoring efforts against Leicester and Villa will do his case for a new Brighton deal no harm.

We just won’t mention what happened when the ball flew over his head in the 3-1 Amex humiliation at the hands of Crystal Palace.

In a telling sign of just how bad December 2024 was for Brighton, the top three for Player of the Month is rounded off by a second right back.

Not only that, but Joel Veltman played only two of the Albion’s six games. The numbers, however, speak for themselves.

10 goals shipped in four December games without Veltman against Fulham, Leicester, Palace and Villa. One goal shipped in two December games with Veltman against West Ham and Brentford.

That tells you everything you need to know about the suave and sophisticated Dutchman’s importance to Brighton.