One To Watch: Wes Hoolahan

Another Saturday means another football match for Birmingham City and this week Norwich City are the visitors to the might fortress that is St Andrews. The Canaries will be in high spirits as they come to the midlands having had a good spell on their return to the Championship notably their first game of the season; a 4-1 demolition of Blackburn Rovers.

Having seen that game, it has made me realise that Norwich are one of the teams that are definitely pushing for promotion and will be up there at the end of the season. They have strong individuals but what I noticed was that they really worked well as a team; the link up play was one of the best I’ve seen live in a good couple of years. So it was hard to choose one player who will cause us a major problem because if I am honest, the whole team will cause us an uncomfortable day in my opinion.

The player that I have chosen is Wes Hoolahan. He has played 4 games this year and with 2 assists as well as 1 goal, he has certainly been a contributor to the collection of points. His return in assists is down to his ability on the ball. He has a range of passing that would give any other midfielder in the Championship a run for their money with long diagonal balls also being a feature of his game as well as short passes.

I also noticed in my time watching him, that he is a good header of the ball. He doesn’t look like he should be mainly due to him not being as physical as other players but he does get a great leap in order to win headers. His perfect hair may contribute to this but he does have a good header on him and so we will really need to watch him on corners and also for late runs into the box from crosses.

The problem we have in defending Hoolahan, is that he is very versatile. So one minute he is running in to get a powerful header on a cross, and the next minute he is shooting from distance with a pile driver. He has everything so it seems. He can shoot, dribble and pass without any real problem. It will be tough to stop him.

But I think that we will drop deep and therefore there will be a lot of men between him and the goal which will restrict his chances but we need to get out and close him down because if we give him time, it doesn’t matter how many defenders we have back, he can pick out a defence splitting pass if he is given time.