Premier League Player of the Month for December - Who deserves it?
The voting for the Premier League Player of the Month for December finishes on Monday, with eight stars nominated for their performances in the last month of 2021.
The candidates to win are Anwar El Ghazi, Bruno Fernandes, Emiliano Martinez, Ben Mee, Marcus Rashford, Mohamed Salah, Tomas Soucek, and John Stones.
Of all the performances from these players over the month of December, the best individual game performance belongs to Salah, who recorded a 9.7 FC Rating for his outing versus Crystal Palace in which he scored two goals and assisted another.
His average rating for December will be evened out by his ineffectual performance against Newcastle, though, when he scored a 5.9 FC Rating.
The second best performance of the month came from Marcus Rashford, who recorded a 8.8 FC Rating after scoring two in Man Utd's narrow 3-2 away win against Sheffield Utd.
However, Rashford is also responsible for worst performance in December from any of the candidates for Player of the Month, as he scored a 5.5 FC Rating in the dismal 0-0 draw against Man City.
PLAYER OF THE MONTH NOMINEES
Average FootballCritic Rating in December
| Player | Team | Best Rating | Average Rating |
| Anwar El Ghazi | Aston Villa | 8.5 | 7.7 |
| Bruno Fernandes | Man Utd | 8.5 | 7.3 |
| Emiliano Martinez | Aston Villa | 8.7 | 7.6 |
| Ben Mee | Burnley | 8.1 | 6.9 |
| Marcus Rashford | Man Utd | 8.8 | 7.2 |
| Mohamed Salah | Liverpool | 9.7 | 7.6 |
| Tomas Soucek | West Ham | 8.3 | 7.3 |
| John Stones | Man City | 8.1 | 7.6 |
Taking every performance the nominees put in throughout the month of December, the player with the best average FC Rating was Aston Villa's El Ghazi.
There are two caveats to this, however:
El Ghazi only played in five matches in December while some of the players in the list played in six.
In his first match of the month, away at Wolves, he was given 15 minutes of playing time and so did not feature enough to actually record a rating. However, he came on to score the winner from the bench so his contribution in a vital win is there for all to see even if it didn't materialise into a numerical rating.
El Ghazi's best performance of the month saw him earn a 8.5 FC Rating as he scored two in Villa's 3-0 away victory against West Brom just before Christmas.
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