Shaun Maloney will be hoping to get his managerial career at Wigan off to a winning start as the newly appointed boss and his side travel to Ewood park on Monday night to face Blackburn Rovers.
The hosts currently find themselves inside the playoff places, in 6th place, having won 14 of their 28 league games so far this campaign. However Blackburn have struggled in the league since the Christmas period.
Jon Dahl Tomasson’s side have only won one of their five games since Christmas, and have recorded highly disappointing defeats against Rotherham and Middlesbrough. The 4-0 defeat against local rivals Rotherham will have been particularly alarming to the Blackburn faithful.
On Tuesday night, Blackburn secured passage into the 5th round of the FA cup as they defeated Birmingham city in a 4th round replay. In the first leg, the sides could not be split as Birmingham found a 91st minute equaliser, which saw the game end 2-2.
The Riversiders left it late on Tuesday as the game headed into extra time after neither team found the back of the net in 90 minutes. An Auston Trusty own goal in the 100th minute was enough to secure safe passage into the 5th round for the first time since the 2016/17 campaign. Blackburn will travel to the King Power Stadium to face Leicester City on March 2nd in the 5th round of the competition.
Wigan find themselves at the foot of the Championship table, on 25 points, having recorded 6 wins, 7 draws and 15 defeats from their 28 league games so far this campaign. The Latics are currently four points off safety, however they have a game in hand over Cardiff who occupy 21st place in the league.
Despite only being in charge of Wigan for less than two months, Kolo Toure was sacked as Wigan manager following a disastrous run of results. The Latics took just two points from his seven Championship matches and a managerial change seemed to be the board's last roll of the dice in an effort to avoid relegation.
Shaun Maloney was appointed the new boss following Wigans defeat to Luton at the weekend. Maloney spent an extensive period of his playing career at the DW stadium and he has vast experience of coaching, having been the assistant manager of Belgium Men’s national Team amongst other titles since his retirement.
In recent meetings of these two sides, Wigan have had success, winning all three of the last encounters. Blackburn have only won once out of the last eight times that these sides have met, however they will be confident heading into Monday night.
When these sides met at the beginning of October, it was Wigan who came out on top of a tight affair. Everton loanee Nathan Broadhead struck just after the hour mark at the Dw stadium to seal all three points for the Latics as the game ended 1-1.
unsurprisingly, given these sides respective league positions, it is Blackburn who are heavily favoured at the bookies ahead of this clash @ 19/20, whilst an away win for Wigan is currently priced @ 14/5.