Michael Bell

Central Defender - Wigan Athletic
25 Sep 2028
Monday
Process

Marked for Michael Bell

56 Edition

The Wigan Athletic Herald

23 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Market

Jon Mellish hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wigan Athletic can pretend not to have heard.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Enso González

Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Squad

Real improvement from Bruno Fernandes at Wigan Athletic

Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Fernandes is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.

Squad

James Carragher stays put

“The easiest signature of my career.” James Carragher and Wigan Athletic agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.

Squad

Sam Tickle in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wigan Athletic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Boardroom

5 academy players handed senior numbers at Wigan Athletic

The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.

Squad

Ronan Darcy has improved at 27, which nobody expected

Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.

The terraces

Wigan Athletic supporters have found a favourite in Enso González

There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Enso González has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.

Market

One of our own: Michael Bell joins the Wigan Athletic first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Michael Bell is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

In brief