• Premier League

Martinez confident Wigan will survive

ESPN staff
February 11, 2013
Roberto Martinez has kept Wigan afloat despite a shoestring budget © Getty Images
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Roberto Martinez is confident Wigan's experience and expertise in relegation battles will enable them to earn a ninth successive season in the Premier League.

The Spaniard has kept Athletic up three times before but they are three points from safety with 12 games remaining after Saturday's 4-1 defeat to Chelsea.

But while Wigan have only won five league games all season, Martinez remains confident they can survive.

He said: "We have been in this situation time after time, three seasons now, so we know what we have to do and how we have to play in the last third of the season. I don't see it as a pressure position. I see it as a real exciting challenge."

But Martinez admits Wigan do not have much margin for error anymore and had hoped to have more points in the bag already.

He added: "We need to be perfect, we need to be as good as we can. It's a real concern. We haven't got the points we wanted to have at this stage.

"We're not looking at the table, we're looking at the points tally that we want to get at the end of the season. As a football club, we know where we are. We know what we have to do.

"We're looking forward to facing the challenge head on. We're going into the last third of the competition, which is where everything happens."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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