Walk into the classroom at Wigan Athletic's Christopher Park training ground on a pre-season morning and you will find Gary Caldwell standing in front of a projector slide bearing two words: "Team first." The head coach, whose Scottish accent carries easily in the dark room, has made it the only standing rule of his squad's season. "That is the one thing that we cannot ever go against," he tells three rows of professional footballers. "The team is the most important aspect of everything we do."

It is a deliberately simple message, but the operation surrounding it is anything but. Caldwell, who returned to the League One club in February to oversee a successful relegation fight, is now attempting to build something more lasting for the 2026-27 campaign, which begins on 14 August.

A staff that arrived together and is growing together

Because Caldwell, first-team coach David Perkins and head of performance analysis Lauren Jones all joined from Exeter City in February, much of the infrastructure they are working with is still relatively new. Jones runs what the club calls a "best practice bank" of video clips, and she is particular about what goes in it. Generic football footage is available in abundance, but Caldwell wants his players watching players in Wigan shirts doing the things being asked of them. With only a few months of footage from this group, the bank is modest. It will grow.

Goalkeeping coach Kevin Miller and physio Michael McBride joined this summer, completing a backroom unit that at least arrived with shared habits and a shared vocabulary. That kind of continuity is not always guaranteed at a club that has had its share of turbulence in recent years.

The science behind the sessions

The days when players reported back for pre-season carrying excess weight and spent the first fortnight running it off are, Caldwell says, largely gone. Body composition testing on the first day back identified only a small number above their optimum numbers, and the coaching staff expect those to be sorted quickly.

More significant is what the club does with the fitness data it collects. A 1.5km time trial, run across 15 pitch lengths with 14 turns, is used by strength and conditioning lead Matthew Barrow and sports scientist Jack Craigie to establish each player's maximum aerobic speed. That figure then becomes the basis for every running session that follows.

"Rather than giving a generic number of lengths, we set individual distances based on their results," Craigie explains. "That way they all get the same stimulus." It is the kind of individualisation that has become standard at the top of the professional game and is now filtering, at varying speeds, into the third tier.

The club's facilities are, by the staff's own assessment, modest but functional. A printed sign in the gym lists the rules: a £50 fine for anyone caught with a phone, wearing sliders or sulking. A £100 fine, apparently, for any player who fails to beat a visiting journalist on the time trial. Centre-back James Carragher is credited with proposing that particular amendment.

Building a squad for the campaign ahead

Not everyone in that pre-season classroom will be there when the season kicks off. Caldwell acknowledged that some players may leave before the campaign begins and new faces will arrive. The club has already added to its squad this summer, and the transfer window still has time to run.

What Caldwell is trying to build is a team that knows its shape and its purpose before competitive football arrives. The tactical meeting that opens each training day is kept short; a handful of points, a few clips, then out onto the grass. The aim is clarity rather than complexity.

For a club that spent much of last season looking nervously over its shoulder at the relegation places, that clarity will be welcome. Wigan finished the 2025-26 campaign in the third tier after Caldwell steadied things following his mid-season return, and the fanbase will be expecting a more comfortable campaign this time around. The pre-season footage, at least, suggests the staff are taking nothing for granted.

Whether the meticulous groundwork translates into points come August is, of course, another matter entirely. It usually is.

Frequently asked

When does Wigan Athletic's 2026-27 League One season start?
Wigan's League One campaign is scheduled to begin on 14 August 2026.
Who is Wigan Athletic's head coach for the 2026-27 season?
Gary Caldwell is Wigan's head coach. He returned to the club in February 2026 and kept them in League One before being retained for the new season.
Where do Wigan Athletic train?
Wigan Athletic train at Christopher Park, their long-established training ground.