Angelo Ogbonna has been doing a fine job alongside Issa Diop at the heart of the Irons defence and he is set to make his eighth successive appearance at AFC Wimbledon on Saturday.

There had been much speculation the Italian could be on his way in the transfer window. Instead, he has become a key player showing exactly why the club were unwilling to entertain any interest in him from way back.

Fabian Balbuena’s absence through injury has ensured that the 30 year old has had a great chance to ensure that he remains on the squad for some time to come.

In fairness to the guy he has recovered very well from some inconsistencies to the point where he has become a regular 7/10 performer.

And he is always something of a danger at set pieces without of late being able to find the net so he will be loking for a repeat of the one he scored against AFC in the League Cup back in August.

And as he prepared for the weekend game against the League One bottom team he told www.whufc.com: “You have to be prepared in football. Every time, something can happen, so you have to be prepared for that and we have a really big squad.

“To be fair, we had a lot of matches in the space of a few days, so that’s why you can’t just relax.

“Some people don’t understand that it is difficult when a player has to come back to play after a long time out of the team, but this is our job and we do not complain. At the moment, for me, it’s good and I’m proud because I’m doing what I love.”

He added: “We need to find the next level of performance and consistency now because we are not happy, to be fair, even though we won a lot of games since the start of December.

“As individual players and as a squad, I think our expectation are a bit higher and we need to step up.”