Wigan Athletic boss lifts lid on transfer window that 'became impossible for us'

Latics managed to add Jensen Weir and Maleace Asamoah during the final week of August, making it 13 incomings in total.

However, in an exclusive interview with Wigan Today, Maloney admits he was thwarted in his efforts to add certain 'profiles' to his squad, because of the 'dynamic' of a market that made it 'impossible to do what we wanted' - especially in attacking areas.

When asked whether he was happy with the window as a whole, Maloney said: "I'm really happy with the players we have, given the way the window evolved.

"The way It went...it just became very difficult for us in certain positions, and in terms of finance, it became impossible for us, particularly in those attacking areas.

"Dale (Taylor) and Joe (Hugill) were actually spoken about very early in the window, they're two players I really like, and I'm delighted to have got them, they're two massive positives.

"But as the window progressed, it kind of changed, the dynamic, from the start of the window, to a point where it became finally impossible to do what we wanted.

"It's just the financial reality of the league...in previous years in League One you've had teams like Leeds United, Sunderland, Wigan as well, who have spent money.

"But now we're seeing clubs going a lot bigger financially, and not just one or two clubs...you're probably talking about seven or eight clubs all pushing.

"We're just not in a position yet to really fight these players for certain players and certain profiles. That sort of happened probably in the first couple of weeks of pre-season...the market, yeah it changed.

"And we have to remember we're in the second year of rebuilding the club, and we're not in a position financially to compete with the top seven or eight clubs yet."

Maloney had previously spoken of his desire to add a 'senior' No.9 to his ranks, which didn't materialise, leading to the club adding rookie Asamoah from League Two Fleetwood Town just hours before the deadline.

"There's a lot behind that..." Maloney explained. "...particularly the Maleace transfer at the end of the window.

"He's really talented, we've been watching him for quite a while, and we see him being here for a number of years.

"But from a point where we were looking at getting more senior players in certain positions...and I think maybe my wording was wrong, I was talking about players with experience, regardless of age.

"Some of them were in their early 20s, and mid-20s, so not particularly old, but experienced in terms of having played in League One, the Championship and other leagues. When that became impossible, I made the decision on the last day to look to the future.

"Instead of having a big financial outlay on players that we maybe hadn't done the required work on, we made the decision to look more longer term with players we were more certain of."

Two of the new signings – Michael Olakigbe and Tyrese Francois – have yet to kick a ball for Latics due to injury, while Luke Robinson is still recovering from summer surgery.

"When I do 11-v-11s on the training ground, I need a really senior, experienced, competitive group,” Maloney added. "There's definitely been times over the last few weeks where we've had to use a number of our Under-18s...even in some of the pre-season games...because we didn't have the numbers.

"I don't think that's healthy for any squad, and hopefully that situation will start to look a lot better over the coming weeks.”