Wigan Athletic are on the brink of confirming promotion to the Championship, and Neil Mellor has praised the squad highly, but said they need to bring in some reinforcements to stay up in the second tier.
Wigan Athletic sit at the summit of the League One table, five points clear of Rotherham United in 2nd. The Latics can confirm promotion to the Championship with a win this weekend, given that the Millers and MK Dons results go their way.
It’s been a rather incredible season from Leam Richardson’s side, who just about stayed up in this division last season after major financial problems limited their signings.
Despite being top, Wigan Athletic have started to see a dip in form recently, winning none of their last three league outings, including a shock loss at home to Cambridge United.
It’s going to be a huge end to the League One season in the final week, with any of the top four in for a shout of automatic promotion.
Ahead of the season’s end, Mellor was speaking to OLBG on the Latic’s season so far, and what they need to do to stay put in the Championship when their promotion is inevitably confirmed…
Q: Can Wigan Athletic comfortably stay up in the Championship if they are to get promotion over the line?
“I think they’ll go up this year and I’ve been really impressed with Wigan.
“They’ve got the job done virtually; I don’t think they’ve been empathic with how they’ve gone about it but that doesn’t matter.
“They’re another football club who have had a few issues with the ownership, now they’ve been taken over and you can see the investment in the club.
“That’s been significant to have put them in this position and I wouldn’t be surprised if they added to what they have already.
“When they do confirm that promotion which is looking likely, they will need to invest in a few more players in order to compete.
“I think that’s the advantage they have this time, they’ve been promoted in the past and come down fairly quickly.
“But that’ll be the big difference, the ownership has really committed to the club this time around and I think they’ll invest enough to bring players in capable of keeping them up.
“It’ll be a big summer to see what sort of recruitment happens there.”
Thoughts?
Mellor is arguably correct here, if the Latics want to stay up in the Championship, then they need a big summer to add some more Championship quality to the squad.
There’s been too many times this season where Wigan Athletics have looked sloppy – something that needs improving before they likely start their second tier season.
Richardson’s side have a tough home tie to Plymouth Argyle on Saturday, where they could celebrate promotion on home turf depending on other results.
