Nottingham Forest, Cardiff City and Bristol City are all interested in signing Wigan Athletic forward Josh Windass this month, according to the Daily Mail.

The Latics are in the middle of a relegation battle in the Championship, as they sit 23rd in the table and five points from safety. It hasn’t been a great campaign for Paul Cook’s side as they barely survived the drop last season and look up against it once more.

Striker Josh Windass has been in mixed form as uncertainty clouds his future at the DW Stadium, injury issues have kept him from making regular appearances for the side. At present, he has 15 appearances under his belt with four goals and no assists to his name in the league.

His future was cast into further doubt when he was completely left out of the Wigan squad for the trip to Swansea City, in which the hosts ran out 2-1 winners after Nathan Byrne struck the opener for the Latics.

The Daily Mail are now reporting that Championship trio Forest, Cardiff and Bristol are all keen on signing Windass before the transfer window shuts in just over a week.

Here we take a look at three reasons why Wigan must stand firm at the trio of clubs circle for the attacker…

It’s a measly valuation

Having signed in August of 2018 for a reported fee in the region of £2.5million, the report of this interest indicates that Wigan value Windass currently at around £500,000, which doesn’t make a lot of sense from a business perspective for the Latics.

It’s clear that not many clubs in the Championship have the financial clout to be able to dismiss such a signing for a fifth of that price in 18 months, especially when he hasn’t played that poorly in the context of a struggling side.

If Wigan are serious about letting him go, they will need to ensure that they are asking for at least double or treble that fee to cover their backs.

They need goals

At present, Windass hasn’t quite captured the form that earned him the move to the DW Stadium from Rangers, with just nine league goals since the start of the season.

However, this isn’t just a problem of his, as the whole squad are extremely short of goals at the moment as they currently hold the worst goalscoring record in the division with just 25 after 28 games.

If Wigan harbour any ambitions of staying up this season, they need to be scoring more goals and keeping hold of their best players that can do that, which Windass presents to the side.

If he were to leave, they are then left dangerously short of options that can play up front.

Do they have time to replace?

If Wigan were to sell Windass this month to a Championship rival, they would be running a serious risk of losing a marquee player for a nominal fee and not having the time to find an adequate replacement.

The transfer window shuts in just over a week and while there is no confirmation that Windass is certainly on his way out of Wigan, time consequently gets even shorter for the Latics to bring someone in who can fire them to safety.

The January transfer window is a tough market to bring key players to the club in, so opting to let a player go that needs replacing is a seriously dangerous move knowing what is at stake for the rest of the season.