David Sharpe backs Malky Mackay to succeed at Wigan

New Wigan chairman David Sharpe has pledged his support to manager Malky Mackay despite his difficult start to life in the DW Stadium hot-seat.

Latics are eight points adrift of safety with just 10 games remaining and they head to Rotherham this weekend in a potentially pivotal clash at the wrong end of the Sky Bet Championship table.

Wigan's slide down the division has been alarming and although they were near the basement when Mackay controversially arrived in November, he has won just four of his 20 games in charge.

However, the Scot has overseen a big transition at the DW Stadium and 23-year-old chairman Sharpe revealed he had been heavily involved in the huge turnover in players in January.

"Malky is a big part of what we are doing here," he told the Wigan Post.

"He realised when he came in back in November that we had a squad that was living off reputations and what they'd done in the past. They weren't achieving what they should have been achieving and we moved them on in January.

"We had 13 players out in total which, for a new manager coming in during January, let alone the summer, is unheard of.

"We made some brave, brave decisions together - me, Malky, Jonathan (Jackson), Matt (Jackson) - to try to take this club forward, because we were moving backwards with those players.

"It's something Malky has done and we are fully behind him in terms of who he's brought in and the squad he has put together."