Premiership Preview: Wigan Athletic

Can Wigan expect to climb any higher?

When ex-professional footballer Dave Whelan bought his hometown team in February 1995, he quickly announced his intentions of taking the fourth-tier side to the top flight, something he succeeded in doing just ten years later. Since then Wigan have been a mainstay of the Premier League, achieving a 10th place finish and a League Cup final. Present manager Roberto Martinez joined the club prior to the 2009-2010 season. However his blend of attacking football and reported great working relationship does not disguise two 16th place finishes. Indeed, the club only escaped relegation through a last day 1-0 win away at Stoke.

When looking at the squad it looks as if the biggest problem Wigan currently faces is the lack of a solid spine. Since their emergence in the Premier League, the club has boasted partnerships of Chimbonda - Bullard - Koumas, Lanzaat - Valencia - Heskey, and Bramble - Scharner - Palacios within particular sides. All of these players ended up moving to bigger clubs with varied success. That seems to be Wigan's big quandary, the mixture of established players and previously unearthed gems has worked very well for them, but what do you do when the mine runs dry?

Whelan has never been shy of investing in his team and will know that it is going to be important if they are to survive another Premiership season.

Goalkeeper
Ali Al-Habsi has now signed a permanent deal after a season on loan at the Lactics, the Omani keeper was one of Wigan's better players last season. In Chris Kirkland they also have a very capable goalkeeper although he has struggled with injuries these past couple of seasons and played very little first team football. Whether he stays now that Al-Habsi has signed a permanent contract is not yet clear.

Defence
A defence of Caldwell, Boyce, Stam and Figueroa aren't bad, but aren't particularly good either. The recent departure of Titus Bramble and Mario Melchiot has lead to a loss of steel in the backline. This is certainly something that needs to be looked at.

Midfield
Wigan does have some useful midfielders in the shape of James McCarthy and James McArthur whilst Charles N'Zogbia is probably the clubs most talented player. The former Newcastle winger finished the season as the clubs top scorer last season, there are however doubts as to whether he will be there last season. His direct wing play makes him a coveted player.

Strikers
Hugo Rodallega holds the Wigan record for most Premiership goals despite hardly being prolific. The acquisition of Mauro Boselli, from Estudiantes for a reported £6.5mil, will be seen as an expensive flop, despite possessing a fantastic scoring record in Argentina, the striker failed to settle in North-West England and saw him self shipped off on loan to Genoa. Goals are going to be hard to come by this season unless a goalscorer can be snapped up from somewhere.

Whelan and Martinez are undoubtedly close and share a vision of playing attack minded football. Indeed Whelan is so enamoured by his charmingly suave manager that he has predicted that in 10 years time he will be managing Barcelona or Real Madrid, while that may yet still be the case, scrambling around in the bottom of the league may not necessarily be the place to test Pythagoras' theory of football. Perhaps something befitting an ‘Alladycian’ approach to the game might be better suited. But then again, if we take what Whelan and Big Sam have been recently spouting perhaps we'll start to believe that El Classico in a decade will have these two managers head-to-head...

Jim