When I heard that Steve Bruce was being lined up as the replacement for Ricky Sbragia, a few alarm bells rang in my head. Bruce, being a Newcastle United fan surely couldn’t be Ellis Short and Niall Quinn’s choice as the new Sunderland manager could he? Would Bruce seriously consider near enough ruling himself out of becoming Newcastle manager in the near future by taking the job? How much would Wigan want for a man they paid £3 million for?

Yet, amazingly, it seems as if Bruce has said yes to becoming the new manager at the Stadium of Light after an all day meeting in the Algarve. Short has made no secret of his plans to pump money into Sunderland and Bruce has seemed frustrated in the last few weeks with his sides perceived lack of effort once they’d passed the magic 40 point mark in the Premiership. After the defeat to Stoke City on May 18th, Bruce let go with his frustrations about his players lack of effort and the fact that what could have been.

Losing 3 top players in the last transfer window didn’t help and with rumours flying around about the future of Antonio Valencia, Bruce may have thought he’d had enough of life in Wigan in his second spell with the Latics. There’s no doubt that Bruce is keen to push himself with the challenge of a bigger club, and looking at his career, Sunderland will be the biggest position he’s held since being the manager of Sheffield United. He’s got an ambitious chairman, a squad of underperforming players but the additional carrot of plenty of money to spend in the summer.

Bruce is attempting to follow in the footsteps of a Sunderland legend with his affection towards Newcastle United. Bob Stokoe, the Black Cats manager between 1972 and 1976, is feted by the Mackems for the 1973 FA Cup win and winning promotion to the old First Division in 1976. If he can impose himself early on at Sunderland, it may end up being the most successful spell that Sunderland fans have had in a long time, Peter Reid’s reign excepted.

For the Wigan Athletic Chairman, Dave Whelan, now it looks as if Bruce on the way to Sunderland, needs to avoid the mistake he made once Paul Jewell resigned. By allowing Chris Hutchings to take over as manager, it almost cost the Latics their Premiership status, until Bruce rode to the rescue. Ordinarily, you’d say the obvious choice would be Roberto Martinez, currently winning plaudits with Swansea City and the expansive way they play football.

As the club that fetched Martinez to England originally as one of the “Three Amigos” in 1995, Wigan obviously are close to his heart. The news that Celtic have made an approach for Martinez will have depressed the usually irrepressible Dave Whelan who would have had the Spaniard at the top of his wish list. Martinez may yet turn the opportunity down, but Celtic is a massive job, with European football every season added to the continual battle with Rangers to win trophies. Is it too big a job to turn down, regardless of his emotional attachment to Wigan Athletic?

Whelan needs to make sure the mistakes of 2007 are not repeated but to lose such an excellent manager and potentially his readymade replacement is dreadful luck. His next managerial appointment will be the most important decision that Whelan will make this year. He has to get it right, but he needs a proven Premiership manager or the rising star of the Championship. Candidates like that aren’t exactly are growing on trees and Whelan needs to give the Latics fans reasons for optimism this summer.

Dave Whelan, the owner and chairman of Wigan Athletic has today been discussing his feelings that a Premiership club going bankrupt is only a matter of time due to the level of debts certain clubs are carrying. Whilst I think he may be overcooking the situation a little but if I’m honest, i’m surprised it’s not happened yet, or we’ve not seen at least one club go into administration so far.

It’s not so far away from the truth though when you look at the bigger picture of clubs that have played Premiership football since the league was created in 1992. Of the 42 clubs (Has it really been that many??) that have played at least one season in the Premiership, at least 17 of them have had major financial problems once they were relegated, with Leeds United being the most well known of the clubs to hit the skids. Add to that Barnsley, Bradford City, Swindon Town, Crystal Palace and Leicester City to name 5 that have gone into administration after leaving the Premiership, saddled by large wage bills and unsuccessful attempts to gain promotion within two seasons of dropping into the Championship.

One former Premiership club of course doesn’t even exist anymore in their original form, Wimbledon, but the phoenix has risen from the ashes and AFC Wimbledon are currently sitting on top of the Conference Division One South, 5 steps below the Premiership.  They can’t return to the Football League quick enough for me, the other lot in Britains dullest city don’t count.

Yet, could a side really go bust whilst still in the top flight? Whelan’s discussions also pointed to his own Wigan Athletic, who he stated now had debts of £15 million and he hoped to have them debt free within 18 months. As he pointed out though, he does need higher crowds at the JJB Stadium to get to that target. Perhaps renaming the ground The DW Stadium from next season, as Wigan are doing, will attract more people in??

Of the Big 4, Only Arsenal probably have the lowest amount of debt in comparison but it’s still a staggering £300 million,but the big four have massive revenue streams that can allow them to swallow enormous debts based in the loans the owners have used to purchase the clubs or fund massive spending sprees. In Arsenal’s case, the debt they incurred was used to build the Emirates Stadium, which has seen their match day revenue jump from around £35 million a season to a whopping £179 million.

The solvent clubs are obviously led by Manchester City, Aston Villa and Tottenham. The only thing Mike Ashley seemed to do right at Newcastle United was clear their £110 million debt when he took over.  Everton, Stoke City, Wigan, Bolton and West Bromich cut their cloth according to their means and carry small amounts of manageable debt. Everyone else would seem to be playing with fire, relegation a sure fire route to administration. Fulham apparently owe their owner Mohammed Al Fayed £165 million, Steve Gibson has underwritten nearly £70 million at Middlesbrough, West Ham will await the Icelandic courts decision on owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson’s ability to repay his debts in June.

In 17 seasons, we’ve only witnessed one club having a fire sale, as Leeds United desperately tried to keep the wolves from the door, but lets not forget before Abramovich arrived, Chelsea were in severe financial difficulty, finances so tight they could only afford to sign one player on a Bosman transfer in Ken Bates’ final season. Whatever happened to Enrique De Lucas?  Chelsea were very close  to asset stripping before the takeover in the summer of 2003.

So, as Whelan refers to, is it only a matter of time before someone actually hits the wall? Let’s hope not, but I fear he may be right sooner rather than later and we see the issues that blight clubs relegated to the Championship and cannot return within two seasons finally reach the Premiership.

When the season began, few people would have given Wigan Athletic a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing in the top ten, never mind pushing on the brink of European Football as January almost comes to a close. After a fantastic first season under Paul Jewell in 2005-2006, which saw them finish in 10th place and then a nerve wracking final day survival by winning at Sheffield United to stay up on goal difference. Last season saw them struggle to cope after Paul Jewell walked away and Chris Hutchings paid the ultimate price after trying to fill his mentors boots again after unsuccessfully trying to follow him at Bradford City and Dave Whelan was left facing a major decision in who to turn to in order to keep Wigan Athletic in the Premiership. Thankfully for Dave Whelan, Steve Bruce was having a terrible time at Birmingham City and desperate to get away from the boardroom infighting and aborted takeover from Carson Yeung. It was in no small part to the laughable attempt at a takeover from Yeung that benefited Wigan Athletic but also, in my opinion, saw Birmingham relegated. Yeung’s statements that he wanted to get Birmingham into the Champions League certainly raised a smile on most football fans faces, especially Wigan Athletic’s once Bruce came back to the JJB Stadium in November 2007.

In the 14 months since Bruce returned for his second spell in Lancashire, Wigan have stabilised, survived and pushed on as Bruce looked to add some flair to the qualities that Wigan already had in their squad with players like Chris Kirkland, Emile Heske, Antonio Valencia and Mario Melchiot giving him an experienced and talented spine to add to. His two signings last January,Palacios and Figueroa certainly raised some eyebrows, but now no-one is in any doubt about the qualities of those two players. The duo certainly began to make certain other clubs wonder why their scouting networks couldn’t pick up these bargains and now with the sale of Palacios to Tottenham for £13 million, a fantastic piece of business for Bruce and Wigan. For whatever reasons Bruce has excelled at picking up some fantastic players for peanuts in his time at the JJB Stadium.

The fee for Palacios, coupled with the the money raised from the sales of Heskey and Kilbane has begun to allow Bruce a chance to build his Wigan Athletic. Crucial to this is the intriguing signing of Mido from Middlesborough and Bruce’s options of playing the Egyptian national side’s striking superstars week in, week out. Mido is a player so frustratingly talented, yet wildly inconsistent that Bruce is going to need every ounce of managerial nous to deal with him but Mido finally needs to stop acting like a primadonna to finally deliver on his natural talent.

At 25 years of age, he is now with his 9th club which should tell you all you need to know about his motivation issues and with a career that has seen him play in 7 different countries, banned from his national side after an amazing touchline argument with his national manager in the Semi Final of the African Nations Cup in 2006, numerous red cards, driving bans, alleged scissor throwing incidents at Ajax and so on. Wigan have made steady progress this year and Bruce tried to sign Mido whilst he was still at Birmingham City so he certainly seems to be keen on the striker. Perhaps Bruce is banking on Mido’s compatriot, Amr Zaki, to assist in getting the best out of the talismanic striker and if it pays off, Wigan Athletic will be a very different prospect to the one that faced sides prior to the transfer window opening.It is certainly an interesting replacement for Emile Heskey.

The cold hard truth is that no one cares about Wigan Athletic. I’ve written about them in the past but even their own supporters aren’t bothered to participate in the discussion.

Out of the 20 teams in the Premier League, Wigan is the most underreported side. Unless, that is, there’s controversy or a outspoken comment needed, both of which usually come from Wigan chairman Dave Whelan.

The Lancashire club continues to fly under the radar, but Steve Bruce deserves more praise after turning the club around last season, escaping relegation and turning the team into a serious threat this season.

Bruce made one of the transfer coups in the summer by signing Amr Zaki on loan from Zamalek. The Egyptian striker has already proven himself by scoring five goals this season and there are plenty more to come from him.

Along with Zaki, Bruce signed three other players this summer featuring Lee Cattermole from Middlesbrough and Olivier Kapo and Daniel de Ridder from Birmingham City.

One of the biggest differences about Wigan this season is their ability to score goals. Fifteen so far this season. As well as Zaki, Emile Heskey has been on stellar form this season and the combination of those two up front can be, on the night, one of the best striking partnerships in the league.

Bruce has a squad of hard-working players that play together well as a team. Players such as Kevin Kilbane, Antonio Valencia, Titus Bramble, Jason Koumas, Paul Scharner, Wilson Palacios, Emmerson Boyce and Erik Edman.

With all of the hard work that Wigan has achieved this season thus far, the hope is that more football fans will attend matches at Wigan’s JJB Stadium.

This Sunday, Wigan Athletic plays Manchester City at home at 11am ET/4pm BST. Catch the match live and online in the EPL Talk Chat with host Johnathan Starling.