Brighton defender Veltman: Van Hecke amazing for win at Forest

Brighton defender Joel Veltman says Jan Paul van Hecke was key for their 3-2 win at Nottingham Forest.

The Seagulls played the final 25 minutes with ten men after captain Lewis Dunk's dismissal.

Veltman said of Van Hecke: 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.

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.

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."