McClaren: ‘Wigan the toughest game of the season so far’

Matt Stead

Newly-promoted Wigan Athletic apparently represent the toughest test of Steve McClaren’s QPR career to date, which to be fair to him isn’t especially long.

QPR have lost all four of their league games under the former England manager, including an embarrassing 7-1 loss away to West Brom last weekend. He ‘has been dealt a dreadful hand’, apparently.

Speculation has understandably mounted about McClaren’s position already, and he has attempted to motivate his side for tomorrow’s visit of Wigan by declaring it their hardest game of the season so far.

Paul Cook’s Wigan have impressed so far this season, particularly in their 3-0 away win against Stoke City on Wednesday evening.

“It’s going to be a tough game. We’ve had tough matches but this is probably the toughest of the season so far,” McClaren said, toughly.

“We need to give monumental effort. They will be coming here buzzing and confident but we have to knock that out of them and assert ourselves to get those first points on the board.

“You saw last season, with Millwall and Sheffield United, that getting a team together in League One and winning promotion breeds a winning mentality.

“Wigan are a great example of that, they’ve added some good players to the squad and proved against Stoke City they are a good team.”