NextGoalWinner’s Player Of The Month award continues into February 2022, and after the drama of January through the eventful and packed schedule and the additional transfer sagas, this months European winner typifies all of January’s chaos as he was heavily featured in most of it, and it is of course Juventus’ £70million man, the 22 year old Serbian striker Dušan Vlahović.

With 4 goals from his 6 appearances, from debut in Serie A to Champions League debut, he has been solid all month, and has massively helped Juventus to go unbeaten in the month of February across all competitions. Admittedly, we are a little biased this month towards Vlahović as he has made his debut and we have been watching him perhaps with intrigue following the transfer sagas, therefore we have looked perhaps more favourably than other European players, however it is truly well deserved for the month.

As always, if you disagree or have anything to add to our pick of the month, head over to Twitter (@NextGoalWinBlog) and let us know what you think.

Match By Match

February 6th: Juventus 2-0 Hellas Verona – It took just 13 minutes for the Serbian to get off the mark for his new club side, as he netted early into the game. A terrific start to live in Turin as Vlahović played the full 90 minutes of his debut. What’s also to be noted is that this was his first game back since the 17th of January, meaning an extended 3 week break between his last Fiorentina appearance and his first at Juve. Aside from the goal, he bagged a 7.7/10 rating for his solid performance, scoring 1, 80% shot accuracy from his 4 strikes, drawing 2 fouls and having 43 touches. A solid debut and he got his month, and career at Juventus off to a great start.

February 13th: Atalanta 1-1 Juventus – Going into his second Serie A game, and coming off of another decent performance in the Coppa Italia win against Sassuolo, Vlahović couldn’t get on the scoresheet as his side could only draw with Atalanta. As Juventus nabbed a late equaliser, Vlahović was peppering the goal with 7 shots but only 4 on target. He did get a booking which brought down his 7.2/10 rating, and it was a solid performance. He won all 6 aerial duels, had 55 touches and made 5 accurate long ball passes. Nothing spectacular from here, but seeming settled in the side and bringing in decent performances.

February 18th: Juventus 1-1 Torino – Admittedly, it’s more of the same from the Torino draw, although Juventus were leading for a large part of the game, Vlahović wasn’t really in the game to influence as he could and possibly should have. Playing only 74 minutes, he earned a 6.1 rating as he only mustered 1 shot, and made 8 passes. He was able to make the most dribbles, and won 3 duels in the air and on the ground, and drew out a foul from the opposition, but ultimately his poorest performance in an otherwise good month.

February 26th: Empoli 2-3 Juventus – The final league game followed on from a impressive Champions League performance, as he took less than a minute to net in his first Champions League performance, and he took the confidence from here into the league win over Empoli, netting a brace and getting his highest 8.8/10 rating in the month. This one really earnt him the award for the month, as his week from netting the Champions League goal, and a brace in Serie A showed he got over his dry patch quickly and seems back to the inevitable goalscorer that Juventus splashed out on. Completing the most dribbles of anyone on the pitch (3), being fouled the most (3) and making 4 recoveries, he was at his finest in this game, and as a result of his 4 goals (3 in Serie A), and overall rating of 7.45/10 for his 4 league games, he is NextGoalWinner’s POTM and I’m sure he couldn’t be happier.