‘Sigh’, I don’t know why I get into this discussion with you as it’s tiring and frustrating having to spoon feed everything to you.
Yes they sold players for more money than us who had been on big wages. Yes they were able to clear the decks to start building a proper squad. That makes my point. They had the funds and room in the wage bill (whilst still having some good players on the books too) to go out and sign a shed load of players who could compete for them at this level.
Adkins hasn’t had that opportunity because he inherited a massive squad of contracted players that not many people wanted so he had little room to operate in the transfer market.
Wigan have been able to sign something like 20 permanent and 10 loan players in during the course of the season. A couple of them being million pound purchases. I think with that sort of room for maneouvre at this level, any semi-competent manager would fancy his chances of building a promotion team.
Conversely, we’ve been able to bring in two permanent signings and four loan signings. Less than the vast majority of teams in the division despite moving loads out either permanently or on loan over the course of the season.