Bruce: Hugo patience paying off

30 March 2009 11:00
Wigan boss Steve Bruce believes his cautious approach with January signing Hugo Rodallega is now starting to pay off for the Latics.The Latics boss has handed the striker just two starts since his move from Necaxa for £4.5million but Bruce is confident that if the club remain patient with their new star they will reap the benefits.The Columbian international was named in the starting XI for the 2-1 win over Hull City last time out and put in an impressive performance.The frontman came inches to scoring his first goal for the club but saw his header come back off the post and his manager now accepts that he has a selection dilemma ahead of him."We've had Hugo up our sleeves for a while, and one of the first questions to me after the Hull game was why hasn't he played more often?" He told the Evening Post."I wanted to play him, but I knew we needed to get some basics into him before starting him regularly."The first thing was for him to get used to being here, remember he's come halfway round the world to play for us."I could quite easily have thrown Hugo in at the deep end but he would have been right up against it and the pressure would have been on."Instead we have given him time to settle, get used to it, and that is paying off."By the end of the season he'll be fully settled. Then he can come back after the summer and have a proper pre-season with us."I'm thinking we've got a very good player on our hands, and he's a little bit different to what we've had before."Hugo is a clever player, he can finish, the lad hasn't scored yet but he's gone close, very close."Once he gets a goal, he'll be all right. He has good technique, he's willing, and good in the air."Rodallega got his chance against the Tigers as a result of Antonio Valencia's injury with Bruce using him out of position as a right winger."I liked our shape against Sunderland, with Paul Scharner getting forward from midfield, leaving Michael Brown and Ben Watson to play in the middle where they're better," he added."Against Hull, we played Rodallega a bit towards the right side to give us a bit of a balance and allow us to still play three central midfielders."He didn't play as far wide as Valencia usually does. With us being at home, I felt we needed two strikers on the pitch, even if Rodallega wasn't playing straight up the middle."Had we been away, I would have probably have left the shape how it was and put Daniel de Ridder on the wing."At home though, you need two strikers on the park somewhere. In the first-half against Hull, I thought that shape worked a treat."[LNB]

Source: Eurosport