Birmingham City manager Garry Monk has piled praise on young centre-back Wes Harding for his display against Blackburn Rovers last weekend.

The 22-year-old replaced the injured Marc Roberts on the ninth minute at Ewood Park, going on to impress the fans and management in the 2-2 draw.

"I thought Harding was fantastic," Monk told his pre-match press conference.

"We had knowledge of him playing at U23s level at centre-back but not at senior level.

"For Wes to come on in those conditions against a side like Blackburn was great to see, I thought he acquitted himself really well."

Harding had appeared 11 times previously in the Championship this season, but ten of them were brief cameos to help see out a match, filling in at left-back for the 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa.

Monk's side travel to Wigan Athletic this weekend, who have lost just twice at home all season, as they look to close the gap on the top-six.

Birmingham currently sit in 11th place and five points behind Middlesbrough, who currently occupy the final play-off spot going into the weekend's action.

The verdict 

Harding had a bit of a nightmare when he came up against Aston Villa earlier in the season at left-back but huge credit has to be given to him for not letting that ruin his confidence.

Monk is the perfect coach for him to have as far as maintaining confidence goes and that showed during his appearance against Rovers.

It would be good to see him given another shot at centre-back this weekend against the Latics.