'Bittersweet' feeling for Wigan Athletic ace - 'If we're all being really honest'
Morgan Fox admits Wigan Athletic's end-of-season resurgence has been 'bittersweet' for the group.
On the one hand, Latics - who were mired in the drop zone, and looking destined for League Two when Gary Caldwell took charge in mid-February - not only confirmed their safety with a fortnight to spare, but could still secure a top-half finish.
On the other, as many in and around the club have acknowledged, Latics should never have found themselves fighting at the 'wrong' end of the table for much of the campaign.
"It's a tough one really...bittersweet I suppose," said Fox. "We've secured our safety, and we know which division we'll be playing in next year.
"But if we're all being really honest - and the gaffer has alluded to this as well - it's not one we're really celebrating.
"You don't even want to say it's a sigh of relief...because I don't think it's that...all we can do is focus on next season and make sure we don't find ourselves in the same position.
"As far as I'm concerned, I want to be higher up the league and fighting to get back up into the Championship.
"Since the manager came in, we had a job to do...it wasn't the job we wanted to do, the job we set out to do. But we had to do that first and foremost, and now it's about building for next year.
"You change a manager for a reason, and things around the club have changed quite a bit.
"The structure of the day, the structure of training has changed, and the boys have obviously reacted well to it.”
Fox has been even more 'frustrated' than most in recent weeks, having been forced to sit on the sidelines as his colleagues dragged their way up the table.
"It was a frustrating one, a tendon in my foot," said the ex-Wales Under-21 defender, who arrived last summer from Championship outfit Queens Park Rangers.
"It was nagging for a while, I managed to get through, but we reached the point where I couldn't continue, so we decided to rest it.
"I was enjoying playing every minute of every game, that's what you want to be doing as a player, and that was very frustrating. But to get back on the pitch has been fantastic."