Exclusive: Don Goodman drops Wigan Athletic, Ryan Lowe prediction for next season | OneFootball

Don Goodman looks at Ryan Lowe's recent appointment as Wigan Athletic manager and gives his view on their League One promotion chances next season

Wigan Athletic will remain in League One for the 2025/26 season after a brief relegation scare was resolved by interim manager Glenn Whelan.

Now under the management of Ryan Lowe, who has a couple of EFL promotions on his CV from his time at Bury and Plymouth Argyle, it seems like they have a stable leader at the club now.

With the Latics having spent a large portion of their recent history in the top two divisions, they will be eager to get back to where they believe that they belong.

The league is getting tougher and tougher with the quality of teams coming up and down from League Two and the Championship, but Wigan know exactly what it takes to get out of the division.

We asked Sky Sports pundit and former EFL striker Don Goodman whether he thinks Ryan Lowe can take Wigan Athletic up next season.

Ryan Lowe's appointment shows that they are hunting promotion

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, Goodman said: "I think the Ryan Lowe appointment was done with the aim of having a push of promotion next season. They weren't particularly in huge relegation trouble when he first took over, Glenn Whelan had done a good job in charge as a caretaker and got a few points on the board."

Impacts have already been shown on the field since his appointment, the Latics only losing two of their ten games under his stewardship, half of the amount of defeats in the ten games preceding him.

"And so Ryan, you can clearly see when you look at their results that he has focused on making them defensively solid which is usually the foundation of a promotion push. In his ten games in charge they have only conceded six goals with four clean sheets in there."

Recruitment is key for next season

There is only so much that a manager can do on his own. He needs help from the people upstairs to facilitate the recruitment that he wants.

Lowe has shown in the past that if he is given time and resources, he can really build a project and create a club challenging at the top end of the table.

This was especially true at Plymouth Argyle, with whom he guided them to automatic promotion in League Two and left the club in fourth place in League One, after he attracted interest from elsewhere.

Goodman gave his view on the importance of recruitment and his general feelings about Wigan next season, and said: "It is a platform for next season and if given support in terms of recruitment, then you can imagine that they will have a much better season next season and certainly be pushing for a playoff spot at least."