Wigan Athletic Review of 2023, with Shaun Maloney

I look back to when I came into the job during the last week of January, and it seems an awfully long time ago.

Obviously it was very exciting to be back, super exciting, I was really happy...seeing a lot of faces that I remember from 10 or 11 years ago.

I was also really aware of where the team was at that point...I think in the previous 18 games or so, they were conceding two goals per game.

So I knew there was an awful lot of work to be done, and I didn't know the group of players, so there was that unknown really.

I knew there was less of us staying up than not staying up, but obviously what happened over the next four or five months was an incredibly difficult experience for all of us.

But I also saw sides of people, sides of players, that I had never seen before, that I will never forget.

I'll never forget the players and staff who continued to work when they weren't getting paid.

And that's why whatever happened at the end of last season - some left on very good terms, others on not so good terms - I will never say a bad word about any of them.

They fought like hell for this club and for me, I guess, even when the financial situation was obviously very challenging.

The turning point for me, when I knew it was perhaps going to prove to be too much, was Blackpool away.

I felt like that was a really big game for us, at that time it looked as though we were going to have to win all of our games, or maybe all but one, to do it.

I still had a belief that we could do it, but we didn't know what the teams around us were going to do and, in fairness to them, they all started to pick up points, especially Huddersfield and Cardiff.

Even though we didn't quite make it, I'm still incredibly proud of the amount of points we managed to pick up - with the backdrop of everything going on.

I saw even signs of myself as a manager that I didn't even know was there.

There's no course that could have prepared me for what we had to deal with, on and off the pitch, last year.

I have to say Graham Barrow was invaluable during that period, what he offered, in terms of his counsel, it was absolutely priceless.

Once we got to the end of the season, the challenge became to make sure we still had a club, and we came extremely close to losing it.

At one point, for a couple of weeks, I thought we were done, I really did.

I quickly became aware of the financial situation involving every single department, especially on the football side, including the liabilities of what we owed, and who we owed it to, and what we had left.

It was so much to take in, I thought it was done, I couldn't possibly see any real way the club was going to come through this, until Mr Danson came along.

And we'll all be forever grateful for what he did, and keeping alive what we have today.

Even making it into this season felt like we'd won, as we start the job of rebuilding the club at every level.

And I'm still not sure, even now, how consistent we're going to be able to be.

I think the way the squad was built, I'm really pleased with it, and with how competitive it's proved to be.

It will change over the next month or so, the dynamics of the squad will change, because we're still under quite strict guidance from the EFL, and what money we can spend, in terms of wages.

It just feels like nothing's ever consistent, but, at the same time, I can't really complain, considering what we've just been talking about.

We've put together a competitive squad of around 23 or 24 players, including a number of Academy products who, in different circumstances, if finances were different, might have been phased in on a more gradual basis.

But in the last couple of games, we've had as many as seven Academy products on the field...one of them, Callum McManaman, retired for a year and is back with us, which is an incredible story just him alone.

So I'm really pleased with where we're at, but one thing I must stress is that the supporters must enjoy watching us at the moment.

I was very aware of that last season, when my first focus was making us more difficult to beat.

Having been here as a player, I know all about the DNA of the club and, trust me, I would like to concede fewer goals.

But I just hope they can see we're trying to create an exciting team, hopefully a team that wins more often, but we've done okay so far, and I hope the supporters feel they're getting value for money for their tickets.

As we head into the New Year, the initial aim is to keep pushing as far away from the bottom four as we can.

Once we get to a certain point that we feel makes us safe, we can then see where it takes us, and obviously we have the cups to look forward to as well.

But I'm already starting to look ahead to next season, and for our squad to look a certain way.

We're probably a little bit behind in terms of having clarity on the financial side, and there will still be a period of time before I'm able to tell the players what the long term looks like.

Staff wise, we just have to keep rebuilding different departments, to give ourselves a chance of finishing in the top six next year.

The first thing, obviously, is to make sure we stay in this league and, once we do that, we can then really start to look to build.

It's a big job, a very big job, trying to build back up a club from scratch.

But we've got some really good people here in the playing squad and on the staff, and that's always a good start.