One To Watch: Adam Bogdan

Being from the North, I have many friends that support Wigan Athletic and I have seen them play a number of times in the last couple of seasons. Therefore I feel like I can make an informed decision for the one to watch for the upcoming game.

Despite being newly promoted, Wigan won’t be an easy game. Firstly, it will be an away game at night which has never produced good performances for the Blues’ especially in recent times such as last season against Blackburn Rovers. Wigan will also be up for the game as they have ambitions of getting into the Premier League in the next 5 years. They have plenty of attacking options in the form of Power and Grigg coupled with the new addition of Buxton at the back; they will be harder than most fans think.

However, my one to watch so far this season has been a disaster. The players I have chosen have either been on the subs bench or under performed so for this weeks pick, I have chosen Bogdan in the vein hope that he will under perform and allow Donaldson to bury a hat-trick. Realistically though, I do believe Bogdan to be their best player based on current form. In their game at Blackburn, he stifled a lot of crosses as this is his forte. However, it will hinder the Blues’ because we always pump crosses into the box so Bogdan will react well to this.

He is also a good shot stopper from long range which again is one of our strengths with Cotterill, Maghoma and Gleeson all capable of shooting from range and getting the ball on target. The real weakness of Bogdan is his close range handling. I am pleased about this because it is Donaldson’s strengths. He likes to get into the box and play as a central figure. He is always in the right place at the right time and therefore he gets a lot of tap-ins. Bogdan’s positioning lets him down on drilled crosses so we could exploit this.

Bogdan also likes to play the ball long rather than short. This is a problem for Birmingham City because he likes the diagonal ball towards our full backs. Grounds to me is our weakest player and isn’t good at reading the game. Due to this, it will mean that Wigan’s pacey forwards can get in behind Grounds and have shots on goal such as the Leeds shot on Saturday. We need to back up Grounds with Shotton or drop the winger back to deal with this.