Gabriel Martinelli won Arsenal’s Player of the Month award for January, with 49% of the fan vote.

Arsenal announced the results of their Player of the Month vote on Wednesday, with Martinelli finishing in first place.

Martinelli made three starts in January. He scored against Sheffield United in the first, scored against Chelsea in the second and assisted a goal against Bournemouth in the third. He also made a couple of substitute appearances against Leeds and Crystal Palace. It’s hard to argue he doesn’t deserve recognition for those performances.

The 18-year-old actually almost missed out on playing for Arsenal in January altogether. He recently spoke about how he wanted to play for the Brazil u23s in their Olympic Qualification tournament over the last few weeks. Arsenal blocked the move to keep him for first-team involvement, and that turned out to be a good decision.

Perhaps just as impressive as Martinelli winning the award, is Granit Xhaka placing second. The Swiss midfielder got 31% of the fan vote, despite those fans largely turning on him ahead of the January window. It’s a clear sign that Mikel Arteta is turning things around for Xhaka at Arsenal.