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The nominees for Manchester United’s ‘Player of the Month’ award for December have been revealed and there’s a heart-warming theme for every single player.
Jonny Evans, Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho make up the three-man shortlist for this month’s award after each delivering a series of impressive performances, albeit in different areas of the pitch.
Jonny is one of 3️⃣ contenders for our December Player of the Month…
Click below to cast your vote 👇🗳️#MUFC
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) January 3, 2024
And, in keeping with the one of the foundations of the club, all three nominees are academy graduates.
This is the first time the award has been an exclusively youth-team affair since November 2019 (Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood and Brandon Williams).
December was an undeniably inconsistent month for Erik ten Hag’s side.
Emphatic wins over Chelsea and Aston Villa at Old Trafford offered glimmers of the system the Dutchman has been trying to forge this season. A hard-fought draw at Anfield demonstrated a level of unity in a squad that many reporters had begun to question.
These impressive victories were promptly followed by disappointing defeats to Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, however, demonstrating the ‘one step forward, two steps back‘ issue Christian Eriksen recently alluded to.
Individually, Garnacho’s performance against Aston Villa was the stand-out of the three contenders.
While Mainoo and Evans delivered solid displays, particularly in the hostile environment of a Liverpool away day, neither player reached the heights of the Argentine against Unai Emery’s side.
Aston Villa had taken an almost undeserved two-nil lead going into half-time, courtesy of two abysmally defended set-pieces, and there was a tense mood amongst the Old Trafford crowd as the players trudged off.
United had fallen to a 2-0 defeat a few days prior against West Ham and the pressure after another disappointing forty-five minutes was acute. The second-half was a pulsating response, however.
Garnacho scored twice, and had another brilliant goal ruled out for offside, as he ran riot on the right-wing. A well-taken half-volley by Rasmus Hojlund completed the comeback as United came from behind to win 3-2 in front of a raucous Old Trafford.
The Argentine was electric and well-deserving of the Man of the Match award. And in a month as up-and-down as the Christmas period for United, it’s a performance good enough to win the Player of the Month award as well.