In the quietest of Januarys, in which we played just three games, Dara O?Shea?s performance in the 3-1 defeat against Manchester City in the Etihad Stadium won him our player of the month award for the first month of the year.
It was a close run thing in both the man of the match and the player ratings, but he won both and it was certainly close for the man of the match with him winning with 23% of the vote and just beating substitute and debutant David Datro Fofana who was second with 22% having come on and set up our consolation goal for Ameen Al-Dakhil. It was Al-Dakhil who took third place with 17% while Sander Berge claimed fourth place with 13% of the vote.
For this game, the same four players also took the top four places in the player ratings and in the same order. That meant a first place finish for O?Shea with a rating of 6.92 out of ten and Fofana in second place with 6.83. Only two other players reached six out of ten for an average performance which saw Al-Dakhil and Berge again in third and fourth places with ratings of 6.08 and 6.04 out of ten respectively. This result has given O?Shea ten points towards the Up the Clarets Player of the Year with six points for Fofana, four for Al-Dakhil and two points for Berge.
Twelve players won points in the three January games but O?Shea was the comfortable winner with 21 points and Hannes Delcroix, for his performance at Spurs in the FA Cup taking second place with ten points.
O?Shea has also moved into fifth place in t...