There’s a chap I know whose name I can’t mention who always tells me the answer on Latics related movements even though he always puts the words “I think” in front of it, presumably to stop me blabbing about it. He told me that Coyle would be our new manager and he told me which two players would be sold weeks before it actually happened.

I’m as good as my word me but I could do with just bumping into him again to find out which talented centre forward we’ll now be bringing in via the loan market. Given Holt’s injury we are left with just Fortune as our one fit striker and it feels like a loan ranger (preferably not Nile Ranger though) could be the final piece of the jigsaw. It could be someone proven at this level, maybe Billy Sharp or Ricardo Vaz Te or it could be a young protégé such as the lad at Arsenal Chuba Akpom. If I had time I’d look through the 25 man Premier League squads and look for players who have been excluded as the answer may be in there young Jedi. But I don’t. Sorry.

 

Nevertheless, with Holt and Fortune the wrong side of thirty bless them we may struggle with the demands of two games per week for the next four months. Last Saturday saw McLean up there at the end of the game and whereas Nick Powell seems to have the eye for a goal, I’m not sure he is an out and out forward.

McCarthy has been a cracking signing from which we’ve made a sizeable sum on the re-sale for but had been playing with his mind elsewhere, so I think we’ve already learned to play without him. Plus players who sometimes struggled to make their mark on a game in the Premier League such as Gomez and Espinoza now have a new aplomb and panache about them.

So with the window shut, Owen Coyle can get on with cracking the Da Vinci code that is working out his best starting eleven and it won’t be easy as we have a big squad and lots of shuffling to do to counter the constant league/cup focus. But then we have a lot of games to play. Though it might not feel like it just yet with those pesky international breaks!!

First published in the Wigan Evening Post 12th Man column Wednesday 11th September 2013

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