Joel Veltman singles out Brighton teammate for praise and admits to unfortunate Nottingham Forest 'accident'

The centre-back has been terrific for Albion this season and the 23-year-old showed his quality in defence when his side were down to 10 men and trying to preserve their 3-2 lead at Nottingham Forest.

The Dutchman played a huge part in the Seagulls securing their first victory in seven Premier League games and now fellow defender Veltman thinks he could be on the cusp of the national side.

“He was amazing, defensively and with the ball he’s making big steps. Last year he didn’t play that much, but he’s still young and every game he played he was learning from the experience and putting it in his backpack,” he told Brighton's website.

“Now he is amazing. It’s a good opportunity for him. [Adam] Webster and Igor [Julio] are injured, so he needs to be there and he was. The balls he was playing into midfield, it’s like he’s 31 or something.

“It was funny because sometimes we were speaking Dutch to each other and the opponents were looking at us like ‘what do they mean?’, because of that we had loads of solutions with crossing and that kind of thing - the whole defence did well.

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“I think he is really close to the national team. For his age, playing in the Premier League, he’s getting there. People have been calling for him to be in the national team. We have a lot of central defenders, but I hope he will be in the squad.”

After securing the three points at City Ground on Saturday, Veltman, his teammates and head coach Roberto De Zerbi celebrated wildly in front of Albion's fans.

And it appears Veltman got a bit too caught up in the moment as he accidentally threw the Global Positioning System (GPS) on his shirt into the crowd, with the 31-year-old desperately trying to get it back.

“You saw at the end, the way we were celebrating says it all. We didn’t win for a few games in the Premier League, but we’re seventh in the table now – we won with fighting spirit,” he added.

“We were down to ten men, Ansu [Fati] and Tariq [Lamptey] went off injured. If you look at the bench the average age was about 20. The relief when the referee blew the whistle was next level. I was so happy that I threw my shirt into the crowd at the end, but I accidentally threw my GPS too!

“So that was sad, I had to go back and try and ask for it – the supporters probably thought I was asking for my shirt back, but I need my GPS back! Hopefully the power of social media will help me get it.”