Perkins: Latics in a better place than last time

After winning promotion straight back to the Championship, Latics again find themselves assessing the damage of being relegated, but Perkins thinks lessons have been learned.

The midfielder, who is out of contract but expected to tie-up a new deal, was player of the year last time he was in League One, but he has warned replicating their title winning success of 2015/16 will be a tough task.

“There’s a lot of quality in this squad, but it probably underlines what a very difficult league this is,” he said.

“Maybe we underestimated how difficult the league was early doors, I don’t know.

“There’s still some good players here, some good young players, and hopefully we can look to the future.

“And I think we’re definitely in a stronger position as a club than when we went down two summers ago.

“That’s got to be a positive we can take out of the situation.”