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WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month - January 2018

January may not have provided any league wins, but there was progression in the FA Cup with leaving Brighton with a very real shot at a best run in the competition for 32 years.

Both Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough were vanquished, Glenn Murray scoring late winners in both games as part of his four goal haul for the month.

Murray was also on target in the 2-2 draw with AFC Bournemouth in which Jose Izquierdo gave his best performance yet for the club and the veteran striker also netted in the frustrating 1-1 draw away at Southampton.

Anthony Knockaert was the only other man to net in the Premier League in January but that he doesn't even make the shortlist tells its own story as the Little French Magician's struggles at the highest level continue but one man who continues to get better with every game is Ezequeil Schelotto, his performance in the 4-0 defeat against Chelsea in particular being a real highlight.

January 2018 Player of the Month -  Ezequiel Schelotto (48.98% of the vote)
Ezequiel Schelotto is living proof that you should never write off a player based on a couple of appearances. Three months ago there were plenty of Albion fans who were describing him as the worst signing Chris Hughton had ever made and even as recently as away at Spurs in December he was taking a huge amount of criticism. Fast forward a month and he is our Albion Player of the Month for January, largely based on his exploits against Chelsea when he looked the second best player on the pitch after Eden Hazard. Compliments don't come any bigger than that.
Played 4 (4 starts, 0 sub). Scored 0.
Second: Glenn Murray (31.02% of the vote)
 The veteran striker had his best ever month as a Premier League player, scoring four times in six games to earn FA Cup wins over Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough and vital draws in the league against Bournemouth and Southampton. And that still wasn't enough to win Player of the Month
Third: Gaetan Bong (7.76% of the vote)
 It can't have been an easy month off the pitch for Gaetan Bong, who was subjected to apparent racist abuse by Jay Rodriguez at West Brom. On the pitch though he has been in exemplerary form, especially since being dropped for Markus Suttner for that ill fated 3-5-2 experiment against Chelsea/

 

The contenders:
Gaetan Bong - Continues to battle with Markus Suttner for the left back role but is now just edging ahead of the Austrian. In a negative team performance at Southampton, he was one of the few players looking to be positive.
Pascal Gross - A slightly quieter month by his high standards but you can't ignore his performance against Bournemouth which was majestic and had the Sky pundits team waxing lyrical about how good he is on the ball.
Jose Izqueirdo - Gave his best performance of the season so far in the draw with Bournemouth. They were simply unable to cope with him with the only black mark against his name being a terrible miss that could've secured all three points.
Glenn Murray - Four goals in seven games in January was an excellent return for the striker. Without him, we'd probably be out of the FA Cup and we would have two less points in the league. He has already surpassed his highest top flight goals total.
Davy Propper - Another solid month. He uses the ball so well as seen in the Bournemouth game when he actually did what the song says and never gave the ball away and looks like he could be a real threat going forwards if he was allowed to do so.
Ezequeil Schelotto - It seems a long time ago that everyone was writing him off after a couple of bad performances when signing from Sporting Lisbon. That Chelsea performance was superb - should've had two penalties and could've scored all from right back.