WAB’s Brighton Power Rankings: December 2019
December’s WAB Power Rankings have landed. Our complicated mathematical algorithm has taken your post-game Twitter player ratings and turned them into a score out of 100, helping us to rank every player who played for the Albion over the course of the month – and find out who Brighton’s best player in December was.
Six games were crammed into the four weeks and with Graham Potter frequently rotating his squad, it gave plenty of players the chance to get decent scores on the doors.
Some seized the opportunity while others didn’t. That lack of consistency best summed up December as a whole for the Albion, as they veered from the sublime to the ridiculous.
One week, they’d win away at Arsenal. The next, concede two atrocious goals against Wolverhampton Wanderers. The next, play Crystal Palace off the park at Selhurst. The next, lose at home to Sheffield United.
At the end of a strange month, here’s how they ranked.
1) Aaron Mooy (81.62 points)
Aaron Mooy was by far and away Brighton’s best player in December, earning 10 points more than his nearest rival. He topped the player ratings for three of the month’s six games, scoring 95.00 against Arsenal, 85.00 against Tottenham Hotspur and 94.73 against Plucky Little Bournemouth – with a goal that BT Sports described as “Dennis Bergkamp-esque” thrown in against the Cherries for good measure.
2) Neal Maupay (71.71)
The Albion’s record buy had an extremely profitable December, scoring three times in as many games at the start of the month. That made him only the second ever Albion player after Glenn Murray to notch in three consecutive Premier League games for the club – with his performance in the Wolves game seeing him ranked as Brighton’s best player that day at the Amex.
3) Maty Ryan (70.12)
Maty Ryan topped the November WAB Power Rankings and he might have come close to repeating the trick were it not for the Sheffield United debacle when he – like everyone else in front of him – just had one of those days. Take away his low ranking against the Blades and he averaged well over 75 in another solid month.
4) Dan Burn (67.22)
The only defender to start all six games, Dan Burn had another consistent month at left back. His best performance came in the Bournemouth win with Sky Sports raving about his showing and VAR controversially denied him a first goal in Brighton colours for the crime of having a finger offside.
5) Lewis Dunk (61.56)
Brighton’s captain had to sit out the defeat at Spurs through illness and he was sorely missed as Harry Kane and Dele Alli found it a little too easy to score at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Dunk was particularly imperious in the draw at Palace, after which he was caught on camera shouting “You jammy shite team” into the home changing room at Selhurst Park.
6) Davy Propper (57.83)
Handsome Davy Propper was the individual who best summed up the Albion’s inconsistencies. He was sublime at Palace at the start of December to be ranked Brighton’s best player yet two weeks later looked like he’d never played football in his life against Sheffield United. Then there was the Wolves home game, where five minutes after celebrating his first goal at the Amex, he passed the ball straight to the visitors for their second equaliser of the afternoon.
7) Pascal Gross (51.04)
The new stick with which Pascal Gross is being beaten by the Instagram generation is that he is “a set piece merchant”. Apparently, it is a bad thing these days if you assist goals from corners and free kicks. Which means we should all forget the beautiful corner he took to set up Adam Webster at Spurs, the standout moment from Gross’ four appearances in December.
8) Adam Webster (47.43)
Webster is fast turning into one of our favourite players here at WAB Towers because you never know what the is going to happen next. He scored excellent headers away at big six opponents Arsenal and Spurs but then resembled a Sunday League player running around on 14 pints of Stella Artois and half a kilo of MDMA against Sheffield United. Webster’s ranking of 16.66 in the defeat against the Blades remains the lowest score banked so far this season.
9) Leandro Trossard (42.93)
Leandro Trossard claimed three assists from four starts in December, setting up goals versus Wolves, Palace and Bournemouth. He is another though whose showing against Sheffield United lets down his overall ranking – or in Trossard’s case, his non-showing given that he only touched the ball twice in the first half before Potter hauled him at the break.
10) Dale Stephens (39.44)
One of Brighton’s best players before December, Dale Stephens picked up a fifth yellow card of the season in the final seconds of the Wolves game which subsequently ruled him out of the trip to Palace. Since his return from suspension, he’s looked a mess quite frankly, failing to score a ranking over 55 before being ‘rested’ for the Bournemouth game. An extraordinary loss of form.
11) Steve Alzate (37.5)
Potter is carefully managing the young Columbia international’s game time. He started at right back against Arsenal and Wolves as Martin Montoya was rested before impressing with a cultured midfield display against Spurs, where his rating of 80.00 was bettered only by the 85.00 of Mooy.
12) Yves Bissouma (36.25)
The surprise choice to replace the suspended Stephens at Palace, Yves Bissouma had an excellent game on what was only his second start of the season. He was equally impressive in his only start in the win over Bournemouth, with both performances securing ratings of over 80.
13) Martin Montoya (34.03)
Before December, Martin Montoya had been one of the first player names on Potter’s team sheet and one of Brighton’s best performers. The Albion boss decided to take him out of the firing line in the final month of 2020, resting him for three of the six games. In the three in which he played, he scored over 74 in both the Palace and Bournemouth fixtures and even managed a respectable 47.50 against Sheffield United.
14) Aaron Connolly (29.58)
Limped off the field at the Emirates clutching his hamstring, Aaron Connolly missed the next two games in December as a result. He looked a little laboured on his return to first team duty, which was best summed up when he failed to get a free header even on target from six yards out against Spurs. Mercifully given that he hasn’t scored since the start of October, nobody seems to be getting on his back yet – which is a surprise given the treatment dished out to other young strikers who went on three month goalless runs early in their careers.
15) Shane Duffy (23.92)
Every time that Webster did something strange in December, Shane Duffy’s stock as Brighton’s best defensive player other than Dunk rose. He stepped in at Spurs following Dunk’s illness and did well enough to keep his place for the Bournemouth game, reuniting his partnership with Dunk. It was no coincidence that with Brighton’s brick wall back together, the Albion recorded their first clean sheet in eight matches.
16) Alireza Jahanbakhsh (18.90)
A name we didn’t expect to see on the WAB Power Rankings again. Alireza Jahanbakhsh’s Brighton future looked bleak when he didn’t start one of Potter’s first 19 Premier League games in charge. Jahanbakhsh was handed his opportunity when Bournemouth came to the Amex thanks to the Albion having to make wholesale changes for their second game in the space of 48 hours. He well and truly grabbed the bull by the horns, scoring his first goal for the club inside of five minutes. That helped him secure a rating of 78.42. Will it be enough to save his Seagulls career?
17) Glenn Murray (14.72)
Even with Potter rotating his squad, Murray still wasn’t afforded a league start in December. In fact, he played only 88 minutes out of a possible 540 with 45 of those coming against Sheffield United. It’s hard to see how he can make an impact either with neither of Potter’s favoured formations 4-2-2-2 or 3-4-3 featuring out-and-out wingers who can provide the sort of service on which he thrives. With a number of clubs said to be interested in signing Murray in January, it looks as though we may be about to say goodbye to one of the greatest strikers that the Albion have ever had.
18) Ezequiel Schelotto (12.91)
Before the Boxing Day trip to Spurs, the Greyhound hadn’t started a game for the Albion since the final weekend of the 2017-18 season. That he is even playing for Brighton still is an achievement in itself after Chris Hughton consigned him to scrapheap last August and he then suffered a serious knee injury on-loan at Chievo a year ago. Being Brighton’s second best player against Kane, Alli and co with a score of 77.50 suggest he may still have something to offer yet.
19) Bernardo (11.25)
Just like Schelotto, Bernardo was handed one start in December and it too came against Spurs. His rating wasn’t a patch on the Greyhound though, the Brazilian left back scoring 67.5 for his efforts after just over three months in the treatment room.
