Wigan Athletic guest column: Cedric Kipre

I know a lot of people are maybe surprised to see Wigan doing so well, but I’m not too surprised.

When I arrived at the club I could see straight away the quality in the camp.

The only question for me was how good was the Championship, because I hadn’t played in it.

But everything is going great and we are proving how much quality we have in the squad.

On a personal note, it wasn’t a difficult decision for me to join Wigan when the opportunity came up.

And it was no problem for me to move down from Scotland, where I’d been very settled at Motherwell.

I was in England for four years before moving to Scotland, and I always loved it here, the lifestyle.

And I was very happy to come back here, and the opportunity to prove myself here.

I had heard the Championship was a tough, physical league before I came here, and I can confirm that is true!

But I suppose you could say me and Chey (Dunkley) are built for a battle and we enjoy the challenge as defenders.

The players are also a bit faster here, and that means you also have to be switched on.

I feel the understanding is coming more and more with every game.

Obviously three of the back four have only been here a matter of weeks, so that will naturally take time to get going.

But you can see with the defensive record, which is getting better and better, the understanding is increasing.

I’m never totally satisfied with my performances, I always think there is room for improvement.

But I think I’m getting there week by week, and that only improve by playing every week in the same defence.

Obviously Dan (Burn) is almost fit again after injury, and no-one will want to be left out.

That’s why it’s so important to perform well in every game, every training session, to make sure you stay in the team.

Everything is going okay at the moment, but it will be the gaffer’s decision – you never know what the future holds.

We will travel to Norwich with confidence, having won our last two matches against two good teams in Hull and Bristol City.

We hope we can keep that run going, but we need to be at our best to ensure that’s the case.

We are in the play-off places at the moment and it would be nice to stay in there for as long as possible.

It’s still far too early to be talking about things like promotion – we’ve only played nine matches.

But we’re there on merit, and the confidence is growing. Let’s see what happens.

Cedric Kipre was speaking to Paul Kendrick