Jordi Gomez: The Man Of The Hour

The Spaniard brings constant upheave when ever he features in a game if he doesn't pull off a hat-trick or a game winner, today he did the latter. He stepped up and bent a free kick round the wall to beat Charlton Athletic keeper Yohann Thuram-Ulien at his near post to gift Wigan all 3 points after a torrid first half.

Even during the dark day when sitting rock bottom of the Premier League, I stood by Martinez and his decisions to play Gomez. Several fans at the DW abuse him on numerous occasions, lowest of lows came after the Zulte Waregem game when Wigan lost 2-1 in the dying embers, Gomez was at the heart of several attacks on and off the field as fans took it upon themselves to voice their views on twitter, Gomez replied to the haters with this:

"Someone who hates you normally hates you for one of three reasons, They either see you as a threat, they hate themselves or they want to be you"

Despite this he continues to play for the club without being disheartened, technically Jordi Gomez is our best player, very skillful, tactically aware and very creative. Gomez didn't shine under Coyle purely because the midfielder plays football, not hoofball. He is the type of player that could pick the ball up in the middle of the field and ping it out wide 40 or 50 yards or find himself on the edge of the box and slip in that killer ball behind the defense like he did for Callum McManaman in the Semi-Final last year. He is the only sort of player that could do that on a regular basis for Wigan this season. My only criticism of the man is his lack of bottle when doing the 'nitty gritty' like Roger Espinoza but then again he isn't that sort of player but he is showing that he can do it when he wants to. Often the criticism of Gomez is his lack or urgency and effort but you have to take the player for what he is, he is not like Roger Espinoza to go charging about the field, at times he will get run off the ball but if you don't give hime options to pass to he will get tackled? There are similar sort of qualities in Dimitar Berbatov that I see in Gomez.

I have rated Jordi for a number of years, his ability to play the game has never been questioned in my but there is that question "Could he put that extra 10% in?". At times he could, but again you have to take Gomez for what he is, the majority of the time he will sit back and play the ball and let his partners in midfield do the running he will then dvance up to the edge of the box to either thread the killer ball in or unleash a 25 yard thunderbolt like he did against Bournemouth. Jordi Gomez is unfairly given a bad reputation by some Wigan fans, for me Ben Watson isn't half the player Gomez is but yet still gets a start each week ahead of Jordi and is a fan favourite, Ben Watson can't pass the ball long distances or with great accuracy, he doesn't dictate play well enough, his ability from dead ball situations is near enough useless and won't get stuck in either. Jordi Gomez does however but because of his style of play which comes across to Wigan fans as lazy and he wasn't the Cup hero in May he gets booed on a regular basis where Watson's frequent errors aren't even highlighted by most of Gomez's haters?

Uwe Rosler admires Gomez greatly but apart from the last European game in Maribor, Gomez hasn't shown the character and ability he possess from start to finish this season, Uwe Rosler had this to say to The Club Website:

"Jordi really wanted to start so he was obviously disappointed, but what fantastic professionalism he showed when he came on."

Jordi Gomez is a very good player if he has the options to pass to, a protector in that midfield and ultimately if the squad can play around the Spaniard, he constantly plays in front of haters and doubters but still seems to put in very good performances more often than not. When he came on for James McArthur some people would have asked themselves 'Is Rosler trying to win this game?' He proved what he is capable of today an if he could do it on a regular occurence then could he prove the haters wrong?