Already voted for in November, Karim Ziani has managed a double at the end of 2008, as he was also elected player of the month for December.

Around 27.000 of you took part in the vote for the Marseille player of the month for December. A difficult month for Olympique de Marseille which had started off well with a 2-1 victory over Nice at the Vélodrome. But, unfortunately, during the encounter Mamadou Niang broke a bone in his foot which promised to keep him out of competition for two months. His absence up front has been clear for all to see as, even though OM have a number of talented attacking players in the attack, Marseille have not scored the slightest goal since.
Against Atlético de Madrid (0-0), Erik Gerets’s men managed to win their ticket to the UEFA Cup and a few days later they brought back a good point from Gerland against the seven times French champions. Unfortunately OM were unable to build on that result against Nancy at home. The team from the Lorraine giving the Vélodrome a cold shower as they won 3-0.

So in a month where OM only managed to score one goal from open play (against Nice, the second goal came from a penalty), you were a large majority who elected Karim Ziani the goalscorer. But apart from this goal, the midfielder was able to show what he was capable of in a number of domains throughout the month, like keeping hold of the ball, percussion, but also in a more defensive role which was not something anyone had seen him do before.
To conclude, the Algerian midfielder was able to show off all of his qualities (dribbling, passing, vision of play, positioning, long and short play …) in the midst of a squad full of talent which will need to score quickly in order to reassure themselves in 2009.

Voting for the Marseille player of the month for December
1/ Karim Ziani: 55%
2/ Steve Mandanda: 9%
3/ Bolo Zenden: 7%