Wigan Athletic may turn to the free agent market for a temporary solution, according to Shaun Maloney, but not to replace Josh Stones, their striker.
The 20-year-old attacker scored on his second “debut” on Wednesday night against Wolves Under-21s in the National League Cup after joining Oldham Athletic earlier this week.
Even though a number of other attacking players are able to move higher up the field, Wigan’s two recognised strikers are Joe Hugill (Manchester United) and Dale Taylor (Nottingham Forest), who are both on loan.
Maloney asserts that if the Latics decide to add a player before January, it will be at the opposite end of the park.
“The only position of concern we have is left-back,” he stated. “Young Luke Robinson has just returned from a seven-month absence due to a knee injury, and we know Luke Chambers will be away for a few months.
“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.”
Maloney responded, “Probably now…we might look to do something now, just to take some of the pressure off,” when asked if that would happen now or in January.
Immediately following a seven-month injury layoff, Robbo is being relied upon. Steven Sessegnon, who is primarily right-sided, can obviously cover there. Therefore, we may try to make some changes in that left-back position.
Sess, Calvin Ramsay, Harry McHugh, James Carragher, and our youthful K’Marni Miller, who is really beginning to make an impression, can all play there if we don’t. However, we’ll see.
Maloney said that Latics is still awaiting word on the full prognosis of Chambers, a Liverpool star who returned to Wigan in the summer following a fruitful loan stint in the second half of the previous season.
“It’s difficult for him, because it’s a recurrence of an injury he first had a few years ago,” said the manager of the Latics. “Even though he is back with Liverpool, we still hope that he hasn’t seen the last of him wearing a Wigan shirt because we still don’t know exactly when he will return.
We only need to know when he will return, which we do not yet have, thus we will not be revoking the loan at this time. However, we adore him as a player and as a person in general, so I will give this one my all right up until the very end.”
Some had thought that a more experienced forward would be brought in when Stones left for Oldham, but Maloney gave the rationale for why that isn’t the case.
“Actually, in that No.9 position, we’ve played two up front some of the time,” he said.
“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.”
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