It’s difficult to know what is more worrying as a Wolves fan right now.

Was it BBC 5 Live’s assertion before the game that we have a total of £6 million to spend during the window?

James McCarthy opens the scoring for Wigan

Or maybe the fact that another referee gave us nothing, apart from a body check on David Jones during Wigan’s first goal?

And then there is the one about our once golden booted number 9, who is a poor shadow of Jackie Gallagher at present, let alone his once marauding self.

What about Richard Stearman continuing as right back, and Kevin Foley masquerading as a right midfielder, who surely wouldn’t have made Stearman’s petulant penalty error if he was in his proper position to begin with?

But above all this, I worry most about our keeper being man-of-the-match against a side we beat with such ease at the DW Stadium back in August.

I worry that in 4 months of football, one team has made tangible, visual progress since then, while the other looks more confused than at any other stage this season.

Whatever the short comings of referee Howard Webb, Wigan were too quick, too powerful and too good for us.

They were quick to win the physical battle, and grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck accordingly.

Rodellega threatened with every touch, crashed a 20 yarder against the post, and caused Craddock and co far more headaches than they endured the first time the two teams met.

In truth, Wigan looked like a typical Mick McCarthy team, but with a bit more flair.

They hassled and harried us all over the pitch, and broke with more pace and vision than we were capable of.

But back to Sylvan. With all that said, the game was at 0-0 when he missed a chance that he would have buried last season, in keeping with his wretched run of form. A meek, miserable, apologetic toe poke wide which summed up his God awful 90 minutes.

Half time at 0-0 still wouldn’t have been disastrous, until Stearman had a brain wave and decided to pull back James McCarthy while the ball sailed out for a goal kick.

Even Hanemann’s heroics weren’t enough to turn the game, as Mick bizarrely took off our one outlet with pace in Jarvis at half time, and replaced him with Dave Jones.

Surely SEB for Jones would have been a more savvy option, as we battled away with 10 men?

So with Stephen Ward’s selfless cover act off the pitch, N’Zogbia ripped him to shreds at will, with every attack going down our left hand side. Again.

From one of these forays, James McCarthy stuck the boot into the club he once spurned, while Howard Webb stuck the shoulder into Jones’ face, thus stopping the only Wolves player who would have cleared the danger. Nice one slap head.

Another worry from this moment was Wigan having loads more time on the ball and loads more space with 10 men, as we failed to get into them in a game that we had to win.

So we lumped the ball to Iwelumo for the remainder of the game and looked more clueless than an Australian cricket umpire with a decision to make.

It came as no surprise when N’Zogbia, easily the best player on the pitch, did what no player in a gold shirt could physically manage – run a distance with the ball at feet, at pace, to score.

Another worry was the hapless, feeble defensive effort from Mancienne in the build-up, who looked as fragile and weak as ever.

And that was that.

To complete my state of bewilderment at full time, I contemplated the big impact Ronald Zubar was making in the team before Christmas.

I wondered why Mancienne was back at centre half when he’s not bloody strong enough.

I concluded that Stephen Ward was still our best left back, despite every team attacking the vast empty spaces he always creates.

And I considered what £6 million would really buy us, if we don’t stump up the cash to pay a bigger wage.

Anyone else worried?

Assuming this match manages to beat the freeze, it will be a massive relief to finally see Wolves play some football and hopefully pick up three valuable points, putting some distance between ourselves and the dropzone in the process.

Wigan though, are an unpredictable force, capable of pulling off some quite unbelievable results like their home triumph over Chelsea and that opening-day away win at Villa Park. But they find themselves below Wolves in the table on goal difference, thanks to some stuttering form of late and a handful of shattering defeats; most notably that 9-1 humbling they suffered at the hands of Spurs.

Wolves came out on top at the DW Stadium

Of course we too have tasted victory over the Latics this season, securing our first ever Premiership away win, thanks to that early Andy Keogh header at the DW Stadium. At the time, I think the victory came as a pleasant surprise to Wolves supporters with many (including myself) forecasting doom beforehand. But there will be none of that this weekend, with the overwhelming majority of those in old gold, expecting the home side to get the job done against Roberto Martinez’s team.

I think the general consensus about Wigan is that if you can get on top of them, they’re susceptible to collapsing like a house of cards, hence why their goal difference is even worse than ours at present. They’ve got some good players though and the likes of N’Zogbia (don’t call him Insomnia), Gomez and Rodallega are likely to ask big questions of us, if we give them time and space to operate. Rodallega in particular is one dangerous customer and without wanting to sound disrespectful to Wigan, seems destined for bigger things. He’s the obvious danger and the man to watch on Saturday, capable of changing a game with a moment of brilliance.

From a Wolves perspective, I’m hoping to see a good performance from what I believe is our strongest eleven at this moment in time, which is:

Hahnemann

Stearman
Berra
Craddock
Ward

Foley
Henry
Milijas
Jarvis

Doyle
SEB

That team should be good enough to push hard for a positive result, so I hope Mick doesn’t entertain the idea of making wholesale changes. I can’t really see why he would, but perhaps the likes of Zubar, Surman and Mancienne might come into his thinking.

I’m feeling pretty confident ahead of this match I must say, which is usually when disaster tends to strike. But with another solid display, I believe we’ll get the win in this one and hopefully score a couple of goals.

I’ll stick my neck out for a 3-1 home win.

If you’re going to the match, have a great time and roar the lads on to victory.

Up The Wolves.