Wigan Athletic boss hunting in free agent market - but not for a striker!

The 20-year-old forward joined Oldham Athletic earlier this week, and scored on his second 'debut' on Wednesday night against Wolves Under-21s in the National League Cup.

That leaves Wigan with only on-loan duo Joe Hugill (Manchester United) and Dale Taylor (Nottingham Forest) as recognised strikers - albeit several other attacking players are capable of moving further up the park.

However, Maloney says if Latics do look to draft in an extra body before January, it will be at the other end of the park.

"The only position of concern we have is left-back," he said. "We know Luke Chambers is going to be out for a few months, and young Luke Robinson is only just back from seven months out with a knee injury.

"To be relying on Robbo as our only recognised left-back...so yeah, if there is anything out there in terms of what we could do now, it would definitely be in that position."

When asked whether that would be now or in January, Maloney replied: "Probably now...we might look to do something now, just to take some of the pressure off.

"To be relying on Robbo, immediately after a seven-month injury lay-off...Sess (Steven Sessegnon) can obviously cover there, but he's predominantly right-sided. So we might look to do something in that left-back area.

"If we don't, Sess can play there, as can Calvin Ramsay, Harry McHugh, James Carragher, and we've now got young K'Marni Miller, who's really starting to push through. But we’ll see."

Maloney also confirmed Latics are still waiting to hear the full prognosis on Liverpool starlet Chambers, who returned to Wigan in the summer after a successful loan spell in the second half of last term.

"It's difficult for him, because it's a recurrence of an injury he first had a few years ago," added the Latics boss. "We're still not completely clear when he will be back, so at the moment - even though he's back with Liverpool – we still hope we haven't seen the last of him in a Wigan shirt.

"At the moment, we won't be cancelling the loan, we just need to get clarity on when he'll be back...and we don't have that yet. But I will give this one absolutely to the very last moment, because we absolutely love him as a player and also as a person around the place."

While some had assumed Stones' departure for Oldham might lead to a more senior forward being brought in, Maloney explained the reasoning why that's not the case.

"Actually, in that No.9 position, we've played two up front some of the time," he added.

"Whether that's Joe and Dale...we've also got Maleace (Asamoah), Chris Sze is now back and training with the group, he's looked very good in training and will definitely play next Tuesday (against Nottingham Forest Under-21s in the final group game of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy)...and Thelo (Aasgaard) has played in that No.9 as well, so we're fine."