To gauge Shaun Maloney’s popularity at Wigan, look no further than the bosses of the Phoenix Lounge at the DW Stadium on Friday who, spotting the manager doing a pitchside TV interview, came out and chanted his name. They were attending the funeral at that time.
Release from grief: mourners in Phoenix and Wigan can identify with this. The club, which almost went bankrupt last summer and started the League One season with minus 8 points, has hope again. Wigan, freed from an order that ended when Wigan Warriors were taken over by local billionaire owner Mike Danson in June, are now above the relegation zone and are rebuilding with a promising young team under Maloney.
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The priority this season is survival, but the FA Cup gave the 2013 winners an early reward with a third-round tie at home to Manchester United. For Wigan’s promising young manager, a supporter of both United and Celtic, this is an opportunity to relish.
“I joined Celtic at 16 and started learning about the Lisbon Lions, the history and individual players, then started doing the same for Manchester United,” he says. “You see the period of the late 50s, early 60s, the story behind it and what they achieved under Sir Matt Busby. Also present were Denis Law, Paddy Crerand and Brian McClair. Now there’s Scott McTominay. “There has always been this connection with Scotland and I love the history of the club.”
For Maloney, the strongest Scottish connection and the biggest influence on his decision to choose United as his English team is Sir Alex Ferguson. The 40-year-old grew up in Aberdeen, where Ferguson made his name breaking the Old Firm’s dominance of Scottish football before heading south in 1986.
“That’s why I started supporting United and I’ve had the chance to meet him a few times,” says the former Celtic, Aston Villa and Wigan winger. “While I was still in Belgium [as a coach under Roberto Martínez] I went to meet him at his office in Wilmslow. I was on a train to London and your son [Jason] passed by. We started talking and I told him that I would love to meet his father. We exchanged email addresses and he sent me an email the next day. I contacted him and his secretary arranged for me to meet him. It was just by chance, I got really lucky and I sat and listened to it for two hours.
“I wanted to ask him about the history of the club as I am a big fan of his. Also, Belgium had and still has very elite players like Hazard, De Bruyne, Courtois, Kompany. They had a lot of players at this level through Manchester United and that “It was the basic foundation of talking to him. People management was a big part of it. He was incredibly gracious to give me two hours.”
Truly incredibly, Maloney’s winner for Wigan against United in April 2012 helped Manchester City lift their local rivals to the title on the final day. This 1-0 win remains Wigan’s only success against United in 19 matches. “He didn’t talk about it, no, and funny enough I didn’t bring it up either,” Maloney says of the goal. “You still don’t forget, do you?”
Martínez had a significant impact on Maloney’s career as a player and manager. Wigan’s FA Cup-winning manager returned to the club last week to oversee the 2-0 win against Carlisle and will be on pundit duties on DW on Monday. The pair spoke at length during the Carlisle game, with Martínez sharing his thoughts on his involvement in United’s tame Champions League game against Bayern Munich.
“He’s a good man, a really good man, and I owe him a lot,” the Scot says. “He made a big impact, especially with a certain style of play that I haven’t been coached before. And then in the really big moments, like on Monday, and with that inner belief that has to be reflected in the players.
“One of the best things about Roberto, when I was a player and I had the greatest moments with Belgium, he was consistent. There was a balanced mood, everything was completely stable. How he behaved and how we trained, whether at Manchester United or at the bottom “Play for a team in the league, it was exactly the same. Even if it was a game we had to win to stay in the division or get to the FA Cup final, his behavior was exactly the same. That was a really big quality he had and I hope my players will feel that in the next few days.”
Wigan are in the clichéd “can’t lose” zone against United, whose FA Cup represents their last chance to win silverware this season and whose manager Erik ten Hag cannot afford to be on the wrong end of an upset.
“I wasn’t a player or a coach at Manchester United but I know the pressures and I know the scrutiny is far superior to Wigan’s manager,” says Maloney. “But there’s still pressure here. When you’re the underdog it’s never as easy as ‘let the pressure off’. It’s my job to ask Manchester United a few questions. As far as I know the history of this club is that if you wanted to fight them they would fight you and if you wanted to beat them they would fight you, out of 10.” “They would have outplayed you nine times. That’s something I have to do my best to ask Manchester. Let United put those two questions together and see if we can get the answers.”