DAVID Wheater has been overlooked for December’s player-of-the-month, which was won by Rochdale’s Matty Lund.

In a strong showing from Wheater, which included a Boxing Day brace to help the Whites beat Shrewsbury, he made the final four but was edged out in favour of the Dale midfielder.

Magnanimously, the 29-year-old was quick to recognise the efforts of his team-mates in his nomination, not least Mark Beevers, with whom he has formed a daunting partnership at the heart of the best defence across the EFL’s three divisions.

“To be honest, awards do mean something to me, it means you’re playing well and people are recognising that,” said Wheater. “But you’d be nothing without the team.

“We just clicked straight away, obviously we hadn’t played together before but we just seem to have clicked, and we do the right defensive things instinctively. Every day the manager will do extra drills of headers after training, things like that keep us on our toes and I think we’ve got the best defensive record in all the league, which is brilliant and obviously the lads in front are helping us out, and Gary (Madine), I always say he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.

“He starts the defence from up front. The whole team, from the keeper, through to those up front, have been brilliant.

We appreciate the work that Gaz puts in, I’d hate to play against him because he’s just so strong. With balls into him he normally sticks or wins the flick-ons and he’s doing brilliantly.

“I don’t know why he gets stick, he’s our first line of defence and normally wins his headers defending at corners – he’s been brilliant for us.”