Vote for your January 2025 WAB Brighton Player of the Month

January 28, 2025January 28, 2025 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

After the disaster of December when Brighton failed to win any of their six fixtures, January 2025 saw the Albion make good progress in Premier League and FA Cup, leaving a much healthier looking Player of the Month shortlist.

Seven points from a possible 12 meant the dream of returning to Europe remains a distinct possibility. As does a good run in the World’s Greatest Cup Competition, although the fourth round draw could admittedly have been kinder.

The Albion’s reward for easing past Norwich City being a home tie with Chelsea. Kicking off at 8pm on a Saturday night.

Good luck getting home from the Amex after that one if it goes to extra time, penalties and does not finish until 11pm. No surprise there were still over 10,000 seats available when sales went as far down the pecking order as season ticket guests.

Anyway, that is another rant for another time. Brighton kicked off January 2025 by holding Arsenal to a 1-1 draw at the Amex with Joao Pedro the Albion player drawing the ire of Gunners fans for getting headbutted in the box, winning and scoring a penalty.

Pedro was not the only one in the firing line. Dropping more points to Brighton sparked another Mikel Arteta meltdown. Arsenal fans meanwhile named everyone from PGMOL to King Charles III as being in on the conspiracy which meant they have not won every game so far this season. Bless ’em.

Next came the 4-0 win at Carrow Road. Georginio Rutter kick started what was an impressive individual January with the first two of a personal four goal haul.

Rutter was joined on the scoresheet by Julio Enciso and Solly March, netting for the first time since recovering from the ACL injury which ruled him out for 14 moths.

Another trip to East Anglia followed five days later. Ipswich Town were despatched 2-0 thanks to Karou Mitoma and Rutter.

And the same two players were both on target in a magnificent 3-1 win at Manchester United. Yankubu Minteh joined them in a Brighton performance so good, it led to Ruben Amorim describing his side as the worst team in United history.

How do you follow up winning at Old Trafford for the third season in a row? This being Brighton, by losing 1-0 at home to Everton and mustering only one shot on target in 105 minutes of football.

A disappointing way for the Albion to end an otherwise promising January. Who is getting your vote for Player of the Month? Here are the contenders.

The candidates for WeAreBrighton.com January 2025 Brighton Player of the Month

Yasin Ayari

You write Ayari off at your peril. Especially when it is half time and he has been crap during the opening 45 minutes. That was the case against Ipswich, followed by an excellent second half performance. He went onto show just how good he can be when putting together an entire 90 minutes at United, which included being heavily involved in the second and third Brighton goals.

Carlos Baleba

It is telling that even when the Albion are awful, Baleba still manages to look half-decent whilst every teammate around him goes to pot. We saw that once more in the disappointing Everton defeat. Praise which came the way of Baleba in January 2025 included Charlie Adam saying he was the best midfielder player in the Premier League and former Brighton striker Glenn Murray claiming he could go onto become better than both Moises Caicedo and Yves Bissouma. Not bad.

Yankubu Minteh

Minteh and Mitoma gave a perfect display of dovetailing wingers in the win against United. Minteh scored the first assisted by Mitoma before the roles were reversed for the second. Lively at Norwich and with a couple of impressive cameos off the bench, this was Minteh’s best month in an Albion shirt so far.

Kaoru Mitoma

Two goals and an assist for the Japanese Bullet Train in January. Scored against Ipswich and United, where he also teed up Minteh for the opening. Gave Norwich a testing time too. Three strong performances in a row suggests Fabian Hurzeler got the decision to rest Mitoma over New Year spot on.

Georginio Rutter

Now an undoubted fan favourite for both his goals and his personality. There were four of the former from the trips to Norwich, Ipswich and United. Rutter led the post-match celebrations at Portman Road. Where he also became a GIF with many uses for his shocked reaction to a VAR decision. Just an eminently likeable guy. And a good player to boot.

Joel Veltman

Brighton were largely rubbish through December, coincidentally a month Veltman spent most of injured. And coincidentally, the Albion were much better in January when Veltman was fit. Won an old-fashioned tussle with Liam Delap against Ipswich, manging to boil the piss of opposition fans as only he can.