Bernardo voted WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month for December 2018
It took Bernardo a little while to settle in at Brighton and Hove Albion, but it’s been worth the wait as the left back’s first real run of games in the side have seen him win our WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month Award for December.
The £9m signing from Red Bull Leipzig had a torrid debut on the opening day of the season in the 2-0 defeat away at Watford with his cause not being helped by an early injury to Bruno meaning that he spend over an hour of the game out of position at right back.
He had to wait over three months to make another league start, being recalled for the 1-1 draw with Leicester City at the end of November but since then he hasn’t missed a league game after displacing Gaetan Bong as first choice left back.
Bernardo’s solid defending and raids forward have made him a popular player already with the Amex faithful and he even managed to notch an assist in the 2-1 defeat against Chelsea, leaping like the proverbial salmon to brilliantly head a ball back across goal for Solly March to volley home.
All of that was enough for him to take first place with over a third of the vote – no mean feat given the contributions of all six players on the December shortlist in a month in which a mammoth seven games took place.
The quality of the other five players up for the award was shown by the fact that the vote for second was actually tied with the Dutch duo of Davy Propper and Jurgen Locadia before securing 19.04% with Propper being declared runner up by virtue of the fact that he played for more minutes than his compatriot.
Propper’s contribution seem to the Albion cause does seem to go under the radar at times, not helped by the fact that he is yet to score in Brighton colours. The classy midfielder started all seven games and gave three of his best performances for the club so far in the 2-1 win away at Huddersfield, the 1-1 draw at home to Arsenal and the 1-0 win over Everton.
There is one GIF in particular from that game against the Toffees where he receives the ball in the middle of the park with Yerry Mina paying close attention but Propper produces the most beautiful of Cruyff turns to leave the £27m product of Barcelona’s famous La Masia Academy completely flummoxed. Belatedly, it seems like Propper is getting the recognition he deserves.
The same can be said of Locadia, who had a remarkable renaissance in the final three games of the month. As recently as the trip to Burnley on December 8th, he was contriving to put a free header from six yards out in front of an open goal over the bar.
A few weeks later and Chris Hughton decided to give him a go out on the left wing away at Plucky Little Bournemouth, a position in which he looked much more comfortable than he had done when leading the line. Goals against Arsenal and Everton followed and all of a sudden, it looks like we have further competition out wide and don’t need to start scrambling down the back of the sofa looking for the receipt for the £14m forked out to PSV Eindhoven last January.
Bernardo – 36.55%
Davy Propper – 19.04%
Jurgen Locadia – 19.04%
Solly March – 9.14%
Florin Andone – 8.38%
Maty Ryan – 7.87%
