How do you pick a Player of the Month when your side has played seven times in April, picked up just three draws, suffered a heaviest home defeat in 46 years and lost to one of only three teams below them in the table?

Seemingly, the answer is you don’t. You pick a bloke who players for another team, but who scored a goal against your relegation rivals that leaves them needing six points from their final two games in order to survive. So, congratulations to Ryan Babel on being voted our WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month for April 2019.







Babel’s 79th minute strike for Fulham against Cardiff City gave the Cottagers a 1-0 win over the Bluebirds on Saturday 27th April. Coupled with Brighton managing to score for the first time in 12 hours and 15 minutes to take a point from a 1-1 draw with Newcastle United on the same day, it meant that Neil Warnock’s side need to win their final two games of the campaign against Crystal Palace and Manchester United to overhaul the Albion. A tall order.

That made Babel’s goal easily the most important moment of the month for the Seagulls and in the process makes him the first non-Albion player to win one of our awards. Blackburn Rovers’ Rudy Gustede finished second in April 2015’s poll thanks to his goal for Blackburn Rovers against Millwall which condemned the Lions to relegation from the Championship whilst ensuring Brighton avoided the drop into League One.

Referee Keith Hill also has a runners up place from October 2013 to his name after he failed to spot that a Watford shot cleared by Gordon Greer was so far over the line of the South Stand goal that it was basically in Rottingdean when Watford came to visit. Hill’s astonishing piece of refereeing helped the Albion to a point which proved vital come the end of the season as Oscar Garcia’s side claimed a playoff spot in the very last minutes of the campaign when Leonardo Ulloa headed his famous winner away at Nottingham Forest.

Babel’s success in winning the poll is made all the more astounding by the fact he picked up 82.24% of the vote. Bernardo finished a distant second, taking 5.79% despite the fact he started both of those atrocious home games in which Plucky Little Bournemouth won 5-0 and Cardiff triumphed 2-0.

The Brazilian left back was however the Albion’s best player in the draw with Newcastle United, had our only shot on target in the 3-0 defeat away at Chelsea and did a hugely impressive job of dealing with Manchester City’s dangerous front line in the 1-0 FA Cup Semi Final loss at Wembley.

Third place was a dead heat between Lewis Dunk and Bruno who both picked up 3.31% but based on our scientific formula which essentially involves selecting whoever has won the most games, Dunk gets the nod ahead of El Capitan. He probably just about deserves it too, if for nothing else than his extraordinary performance away at Tottenham Hotspur in which he headed, tackled and blocked absolutely everything.





