[retired_mygem19]

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has revealed he hopes to appoint Steve Bruce as the club's new manager on Monday.

The Latics supremo says a contract has been verbally agreed between all parties and that it is just awaiting Bruce's signature.

Wigan made an approach for Bruce earlier this week as they look for a successor to Chris Hutchings.

Bruce, who had a brief spell in charge of Wigan in 2001, is highly-regarded by Whelan and he sees the former Manchester United defender as the ideal man to transform their fortunes.

Bruce's future at Birmingham has been the subject of speculation for some time because of the uncertainty surrounding Carson Yeung's proposed takeover of the club.

Whelan is now confident that he has managed to lure Bruce to The JJB Stadium with a deal expected to be finalised on Monday.

"We will have a meeting with Steve on Monday and we are hoping we can make an announcement on Monday or Tuesday," Whelan told Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme.

"We look like we have a contract agreed but nothing has been signed. There is no doubt from the very start when we approached he was keen to come to Wigan."

Whelan admitted it has cost the club somewhere in the region of £3million in compensation to secure Bruce's release from Birmingham

"There is a clause in there and we have to honour that. We have agreed that with Birmingham," added Whelan.

"To get a manager of Steve Bruce's quality I think that is a bargain."

Whelan is also hoping to bring Bruce's assistant Eric Black to The JJB, but Birmingham are keen to keep the Scotsman at St Andrews.

"Eric Black has to be agreed between Steve and the management," explained Whelan.

"I understand Birmingham want some continuity. He wants to come with Steve because a team always stays together.

"Whether he will come immediately I don't know.

"It is a mess when you are looking for a new manager. Everything is stirred up.

"It is never a happy time and the sooner it is over and Steve joins us I will be a very happy man."

Birmingham nicely screwed here, wp Wigan :cool:

[retired_gitfresh]

Not counting our chickens yet. Something bound to go wrong at some point.

[retired_gitfresh]

Better today, much better, Bruce apparantly went into the changing room before the game to speak to the players.

Also with the result today being a forgone conclusion Talk Sport were suggesting that Bruce DID have an input into the team - owing to so many changes - as he wanted to see the players that he didnt know too much about in action.

Cant see that being the case though. Melchiot, Taylor and Valencia were all out with the flu and Kirkland was forced to be named on the bench suffering from the flu because we've no other keeper atm. So the team pretty much picked itself.

Will also be intresting to see where Bruce plays Scharner. He was interested in him when we beat Brum to him. Hopefully we'll see the Austrian back in the back four at some point.

[retired_gitfresh]

Finally -

STEVE BRUCE - WORK BEGINS
Posted on: Mon 26 Nov 2007

A New era begins as Steve Bruce meets the players and takes charge of his first training session. Keep coming back to the Wigan Athletic's Official Club website as we take you through the events of an historic day as they unfold
Having signed his contract on Friday, new Wigan Athletic manager Steve Bruce was at his desk at the Christopher Park Training Ground this morning, and took his first training session with the players before being unveiled to the media this afternoon.

"I can't wait to start now," he said, "we've got a fantastic squad of players here that I know are good enough to stay in the Premier League. Now we've got to go out and prove it."

Bruce briefly met the players at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday before greeting them all this morning and taking them for his first training session.

Speaking exclusively to the official club website, he said: "I am really looking forward to the challenges ahead.

"It was good to meet the players on Saturday at Arsenal and I thought the team worked really hard on the day and were a little unlucky but that is the way it goes against team of the quality of Arsenal.

"We clearly need to guard against that and to become hard to beat. I have already identified some areas where I think we can improve, but generally I will say that having studied the squad, there are some fantastic players at this football club and as a group, they should be doing far better than they are.

"That's my job to start putting that right, that's why I have been brought in and the first priority of course. As far as I am concerned, everyone starts from scratch from today, I will judge every player on how they perform for me on the training ground. I am the type of person who takes people as I find them and that is the message I have told the players. Go and show me what you can do."

SB says he is hopeful of adding to his back room team this week.

[retired_gitfresh]

Heard a little whisper that Bruce is less than impressed with the fitness of the squad.

Wonder if the Aussie fitness mon will get the boot like Seagraves has. TBH i think everyone has know from the last 18months that fitness was lacking so it comes as no surprise

[retired_gitfresh]

Titus /

[retired_Rivkia147]

Scharner :thup:

[retired_Rivkia147]

Nah, we were decent today, played some good football at times and worked hard. Not a Bruce fan, but he isn't wrong in saying that with the personnel we shouldn't be were we are. Bit of a shame he didn't want to push on when Heskey got injured, but maybe it was more important to stop the rot and start getting some points.

[retired_Rivkia147]

only thing about Bramble was, at least he got it out his head and didn't have a total mare. That's his one big mistake out the way....

[retired_gitfresh]

True. He did get caught another couple of times i did notice but i'm not sure if that was down to him or City players putting through some decent through balls.

Big improvement on recent performances though. However, we still dont look like we are ever going to score more than one goal in a game. Although thats probably not something coaching can improve on, we need a quality striker in Jan.