Ex-Latics captain Caldwell has five games to save the 2013 FA Cup winners from another relegation, but is it too big a task for a rookie manager?
Wigan sit 23rd in the Sky Bet Championship table and eight points from safety with just five games remaining. 32-year-old Gary Caldwell – who retired from the game with a hip injury in the summer of 2014 – becomes the third full-time manager at the DW Stadium this season and clearly approaches the task with a ‘nothing to lose’ philosophy.
Previous manager Malky Mackay failed to win in 13 home matches as manager and the final straw was a 2-0 home defeat to Derby County on Easter Monday. With just five games left, the new chairman, 23-year-old David Sharpe, needs a reaction as soon as possible, and it appears they weren’t looking likely to get that from Mackay.
Now Caldwell – who made over 400 career appearances for the likes of Celtic, Hibernian, Coventry City, Derby County and Wigan – faces a short term fire-fighting job, but actually has the Wigan position on a long term basis.
Many appointments such as this see a manager set a very short term brief with little long term thinking, but Wigan’s official statement on Tuesday specifically stated that Caldwell had been awarded a permanent contract.
Furthermore, chairman Sharpe claimed: “For me the timing was important; we will look to get a reaction in the next five games and this period crucially gives Gary a chance to look at the players in his way until the end of the season. Plus it enables us to start working now with a manager we know will be in place next season.
It is an enormous leap of faith in Caldwell, who Sharpe claims shares “the same football philosophy” and is also a significant move for the new chairman who inherited the previous manager Mackay from his grandfather Dave Whelan’s controversial reign as chairman.
Caldwell’s first test in his gargantuan task of saving Wigan from the drop is a double-header against relegation rivals Fulham (Friday 10th April) and Millwall (Tuesday 14th April). Crucially, given their wretched home record, both games are away and Wigan must be looking to get maximum points from those two pivotal games.
After that, Wigan face two home games against Brighton and promotion-chasing Wolves, before a final day visit to Brentford, where Mark Warburton will be hoping to bow out as Bees boss with at least a play-off spot.
It is certainly a case of ‘in at the deep end’ for rookie boss Caldwell, but the task couldn’t be clearer.
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