Source: PA
Martinez plays down expectations
Wigan manager Roberto Martinez believes his side have hit form at the right time but is having to play down expectations this weekend.
Latics, widely written off as relegation certainties just a few weeks ago, have given themselves a great chance of avoiding the drop by collecting seven points from their last four Barclays Premier League games.
Last week's win at Blackpool lifted them out of the bottom three for the first time in three months and they now, unusually, find themselves as favourites for Saturday`s trip to Sunderland. That status also has much to do with the Wearsiders' current form, however, with Steve Bruce's side having plummeted amid a nine-game run in which they have collected just one point. Sunderland were 15 points ahead of Wigan in January but that difference will be cut to just one if Martinez can engineer another win at the Stadium of Light.
The Spaniard said: "The return of points has been very pleasing and now we are just excited about the last five games. We are always confident in our own ability and I feel we are going to be confident in the next five games. But I don't think you can pick a right or wrong moment to play a side.
"We don't get carried away in terms of looking at form because we know on their day Sunderland can beat anyone. They haven't been getting a lot of good results but if you look at the squad they have got, it is a squad that showed in the first half of the season they could be fighting for Europe.
"The quality is there - you always get, for different reasons, into a bad moment of form but it is quite clear that on their day Sunderland are a very strong side. They have got huge experience and real talent, they have players who had a massive impact at the World Cup. That is the level they've got and we are going to have to be at our best at the Stadium of Light."
