NextGoalWinner’s Player Of The Month award continues into March 2022, and with an international break taking up around half of this month’s games, football across Europe had a hectic few weeks before the delay. Despite this, with many clubs squeezing in 3/4 games before departing for international duty, several huge talents across Europe had a stellar run of club games, making this months award one of the toughest to hand out since we began.

With the likes of Ferran Torres and his Barcelona teammates stepping up and performing well, along with Joao Felix and other big talents in Spain, Dzeko and Tammy Abraham doing the business in front of goal in Italy and Lewandowski once again being the goal machine he is, this award could have gone to any of the biggest leagues, but our decision has been made, and the award is heading back to France and Ligue 1 for the first time in a long long time. Our choice, is Rennes midfielder Benjamin Bourigeaud who’s 3 appearances this month has brought 3 wins, 2 goals and 4 assists, all from central midfield. A highly underrated month from the French midfielder and we certainly think he is deserving of this month’s NextGoalWinner POTM award.

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

March 6th: Rennes 2-0 Angers – In the first of Rennes 3 Ligue 1 games this month, they got things going with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Angers. Bourigeaud netted inside the first half to give his side a lead which they then secured late in the second half to guarantee all 3 points. Playing 89 minutes of the 90, he netted 1 goal, got away 2 shots (100% accuracy), made 5 key passes, 4 accurate crosses, 5 accurate long balls, 7 recoveries and 1 interception. Being used on the right of the midfield, his influence over the game was unmatched, and he picked up an 8.5/10 rating from FotMob to start off his month.

March 13th: Lyon 2-4 Rennes – In-between league games, Rennes suffered a 2-0 defeat in the Europa Conference League away at Leicester, however returning to the league, they got back on track with another win. This time, hammering 4 goals away to a Lyon side who are struggling despite their status within the game. Bourigeaud again got things going with an 11th minute goal, and later set up Rennes 3rd. With a man of the match performance (8.4/10), he got his goal and assist, made 1 key pass, 100% shot accuracy, 4 recoveries and 1 interception. In a monumental win in their fight for the Champions League spots, Bourigeaud led his side to 3 points and keeping in distance of Marseille.

March 20th: Rennes 6-1 Metz – In the 3rd Ligue 1 matchup, Rennes ran riot at home to Metz, hitting them for 6. Bourigeaud helped his side massively with a hattrick of assists as his club dominated the game. With a 9.6/10 rating, this of course was his best performance of the month, and again despite being officially eliminated from European competition, their focus is truly on getting Champions League qualification in the final run in. The midfielder with his 3 assists brought his monthly total to 2 goals (3 in all competitions), 4 assists and an average rating of 8.8 for the league month (8.32 in all competitions).