Sky Sports' Football League presenter David Prutton has suggested that the lower expectations on Wigan Athletic than some of their relegation rivals will help the Latics in their battle for Championship survival this season.

Having endured a difficult start to the season that had seen Wigan mired in the relegation zone for much of the early part of the campaign, Paul Cook's side currently find themselves 19th in the Championship, two points clear of the relegation zone, following a run of five wins and two draws from their last eight league games, which includes wins away to league leaders West Brom and second-placed Leeds United.

Now it seems that Prutton feels this run could be the start of something even better for Wigan, as he told Sky Sports' EFL Podcast: “It’s amazing because it’s the first big step on a road of even bigger steps.

“Getting over that dotted line come the end of the season – psychologically I think they’re in a very strong place.

“They don’t strike me as a team who’ve been really low on confidence because they know where they’re operating."

Discussing the importance of picking up those wins away from home against the likes of Leeds and West Brom to seemingly help bring an end to their poor recent record on the road the former Nottingham Forest and Leeds midfielder continued: “The one thing that’s always been the case when we look at Wigan is they’ve been relatively successful at home and not so much on the road and they’ve been looking to address that.

That recent climb out of the bottom three has also put the Latics ahead of the likes of Middlesbrough, and Stoke in the fight for survival, and Prutton believes the profile of some of the clubs they are competing with could also help Wigan over the next few weeks, with the 38-year-old concluding: “That element of getting out of the bottom three – you just have to look at the teams that were above them.

“Big former Premier League clubs – you can put Wigan in that category but expectations for Wigan were different than for those around them.

“Maybe that’ll stand them in good stead to motivate them between now and the end of the season.”

The Verdict

Prutton does seem to have a point here.

Unlike the likes of Middlesbrough and Stoke, who had been expected to challenge for the play-offs this season, you feel that Wigan's aims had more been focused on survival again.

As a result, the pressure is not currently on the Latics in the same way that it is with teams such as Middlesbrough and Stoke, giving Cook's side an extra element of freedom to go out and play in their most natural way, which certainly seems to be working at the minute.

Indeed, the results they have picked up in the last few weeks do suggest they have the potential to aim higher than simply staying in the division next season, although for now survival surely has to be their sole priority.