The first month of the new year lived up to its billing, as teams rallied forward with the desire to force an advantage over their rivals as the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 approaches the business end of the season. Heading into the final month of the Hero ISL 2019-20 league stage, almost every team is in with a fighting chance of making the final four – much of which can be attributed to some exceptional performances by some key players in the month gone by.

Taking these into account, here’s a look at the five top performers from January 2020, who have been nominated for the Hero of the Month award. Over the next few days, fans and a panel of experts will cast their votes to choose the eventual winner.

How to vote:

Here’s how the votes are counted:

Fans' votes will count towards 50% of the vote share and experts' votes account for the remaining 50%.

For example, if nominee ‘A’ gets 80 % of votes from fans, it will be counted as 40% in the final tally.

Similarly, if nominee A gets 60% of the experts' votes, it will be counted as 30% in the final tally and his final count will be 70% (40%+30%).

The nominee with the highest cumulative percentage (fans + experts) after voting ends will be named the Hero of the Month.

In the event that two players end up with equal final percentage (fans & experts' votes), the nominee with the higher percentage of experts' votes will win.

Here are the Hero of the Month nominees for January:

Nerijus Valskis

Chennaiyin FC’s resurgence in the last month or so has been majorly fuelled by Valskis’ outstanding performances at the tip of their attack. The Lithuanian scored a league-high five goals this month, while also registering an assist. In addition to that, the 32-year-old also provided seven key passes and won an impressive eight aerial duels in his four outings.

Arindam Bhattacharja

Keeping things tight at the back has been an important factor behind Antonio Habas and Co. staying within touching distance of the top of the table. Arindam’s performances between the sticks, therefore, demands near perfection and the 30-year-old did exactly that last month, as he kept three clean sheets, making 16 saves and 12 clearances in just four appearances.

Rafael Crivellaro

Keeping up with his teammate Valskis and playing an integral role in Chennaiyin’s rapid surge up the table last month, has been the classy 30-year-old. Crivellaro caused some serious problems for opposition defences last month, scoring two and laying out two further assists in four matches. The Chennaiyin midfielder provided a total of 11 key passes and did his bit in the defence with three blocks and as many clearances.

Sunil Chhetri

The Bengaluru FC skipper was at his clinical best in the month of January, scoring four goals and providing three key passes for his team. Additionally, Chhetri’s leadership and game management skills helped the Blues navigate their way past some difficult matches, thus ensuring the defending champions kept pace with FC Goa and ATK FC in the race for the summit spot.

Hugo Boumous

FC Goa’s French attacker was on song in January, picking up right from where he left off in January. The enigmatic midfielder scored three, including a vital match-winning brace against Kerala Blasters FC, and assisted once in his five outings last month. He also had a whopping 202 successful passes over the month, and 12 of these were key passes.

Related tags:

2019-2020