Football Season Guide

After enjoying a renaissance under Uwe Rosler in the second half of the 2013/14 season, Wigan were widely expected to spend the 2014/15 season fighting for direct promotion to the Premier League. It is hard to say exactly what went wrong for the Latics, but they went on to endure a horror campaign during which they played worse than anyone could have predicted, and were eventually relegated to League One. Having won the FA Cup as recently as two years ago, their fall from grace has been simply remarkable, and they will be hoping to return to the second tier immediately. The board have made the somewhat controversial decision to name Gary Caldwell as their new manager. Caldwell has only retired from active playing this summer, and this will obviously be his first managerial stint, but he is an authoritative figure and well-respected by everyone at the club, so he might just have the charisma needed to get the job done. As is usually the case with newly-relegated sides, Wigan have suffered a real exodus of players during the summer, with several of their regulars leaving them in order to keep playing in the Championship or go abroad. However, the Latics have far more financial muscle than most sides in League One and have bought well, with each and every player to have joined them during the summer being good enough to become a key player for the majority of clubs playing their trade in the third tier. Despite all their summer changes, Wigan have a squad full of players of Championship quality, and have considerable squad depth by League One standards. Apart from Caldwell's inexperience, the other big concern regarding them is whether or not they will need a lot of time to adjust following all of the changes that they have had during the summer. If they manage to play up to their potential early in the season, they should be expected to battle for direct promotion.