Vote for your January 2023 WAB Brighton Player of the Month

Solly March nominated for Premier League Player of the Month, Roberto De Zerbi up for Manager of the Month, a whole host of Brighton goals involved in Goal of the Month… it is fair to say that January 2023 was rather good for the Albion.

Two wins and a draw in the bread and butter of top flight football left Brighton sitting pretty in sixth place in the table, five points behind Spurs in fifth but with two games in hand. De Zerbi’s dream of bringing European football to the Amex remains very much on the Albion’s radar.

And even if Brighton do fail to finish in the top six, then who is to say Thursday nights in Tbilisi or Tirana will not be achieved via the FA Cup?

Brighton made smooth progress into the fifth round of the world’s greatest cup competition, hammering Championship promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough 5-1 at the Riverside Stadium before eliminating holders Liverpool 2-1 at the Amex.

Jurgen Klopp’s Redmen were beaten twice in the space of 15 days by Brighton, with the first of those Albion victories going a long way to securing March his January 2023 Premier League Player of the Month nomination and sparking talk of a possible England call up.

March might be in the running for the league-wide award but he still faces stiff competition to win our WAB vote ahead of the five other candidates.

Kaoru Mitoma was victorious in both our November 2022 and December 2022 Player of the Month awards which funnily enough coincided in a spike in visitors to this website from Japan.

He has continued that form into January and nobody could argue with the outcome if he were to win a third WAB Player of the Month in a row. Konnichiwa to all our new readers.

Evan Ferguson broke into De Zerbi’s starting XI and looked like he had been playing at this level his whole life. Pervis Estupinan could not stop assisting. Pascal Gross was Pascal Gross. Alexis Mac Allister returned from Qatar a world champion and looking better than ever.

Over to you to decide.

The candidates for WeAreBrighton.com January 2023 Brighton Player of the Month

Pervis Estupinan
There remain some questions about him defensively but my goodness, what a player to watch charging forward. How often do you see a left back get two assists in the same game, as he did in the 2-2 draw at Leicester City? Followed that up by being heavily involved in Mitoma’s FA Cup winner against Liverpool.

Evan Ferguson
A full Premier League debut away at Everton came as something of a surprise. He richly vindicated De Zerbi’s faith with a goal and an assist as the Toffees were swatted aside 4-1. Even more important was his contribution off the bench against Leicester, where his 88th minute bullet header secured a deserved point for the Albion.

Pascal Gross
Right back, holding midfielder, number 10… it does not matter where De Zerbi deploys Der Kaiser, he always delivers. Goals against Everton and Middlesbrough mean he has seven for the season and has already equalled his total from the 2017-18 campaign, his most productive in an Albion shirt. Also claimed yet another assist in the win at the Riverside Stadium.

Alexis Mac Allister
Nobody could have blamed Mac Allister if he suffered something of a hangover after Qatar. After all, playing Middlesbrough away is a very different prospect to winning the World Cup final alongside Lionel Messi. Two goals in 45 minutes against Boro including an utterly outrageous back heel put any questions to bed about how he would fare on his return to England. Another superb month for the playmaker.

Solly March
His score in the Brighton 3-0 Liverpool WAB player ratings was the second-highest ever behind only Leandro Trossard’s hat-trick heroics at Anfield three months earlier. It has long been said about March that he would become a frightening good player if he could add an end product to his game. Three goals and two assists in January were numbers none of his teammates could match.

Kaoru Mitoma
The most dangerous winger in the Premier League right now? Quite possibly. There is something utterly mesmerising about watching him run with the ball; the speed, the balance, the directness. And then he cuts inside from the left and smashes into the top corner, as happened at Everton and Leicester. Oh, and when he isn’t doing that, he will just scoop the ball over Joe Gomez and volley in a 91st minute winner past Liverpool in the FA Cup.

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Poll closes at 8pm on Sunday 5th February