"Caleb has a lot of potential. He's a good size and has a good presence. While there is plenty of work to do with him, he is very keen and hungry, and will be a handful for defenders as we have already seen against Reading and Portsmouth.
"With Julius, I wanted to bring him here and ideally ease him into things. But instead I had to throw him in at the deep end. He got off the plane on Thursday night and by 3pm on Saturday was playing in a million-miles-an-hour Premiership game with just one training session in between.
"I think he will be a great player. He's only coming up 25, he wants to play in the Premiership and here is his opportunity."
While Jewell was shocked that he managed to obtain Julius Aghahowa for a price cheaper than expected. He added: "Look at the price we paid, double it and add some more.
"When we first tried to buy Julius, he had nearly three years left on his contract, so the price was something like 8m euros. Obviously his contract had run down when we went in again, but we still paid 3m euros for a player coming out of contract in October.
"Actually, negotiations with Shakhtar weren't difficult. They are a very honest club who just stuck out for good money. Terms with Julius were agreed very quickly, and the biggest problem was getting him the work permit."
But the Latics boss is more than happy that the window is now closed.
"It really has been mentally and physically draining. People would give you their word and then go back on it. I think I made seven or eight bids for players, and made numerous enquiries on top of those.
"At least I know now that when I finish training, I haven't got to go back to the office to talk to players, agents and clubs. We have to make sure we have enough points on the board to stay in the Premiership and then improve it in the summer.
"I feel I can keep the club up, and have done so all season. When you look back at last season, we kept a lot of clean sheets early on and had eight wins by the start of November. That was the basis of our season.
"This time I think like for like, we have better players. But it doesn't always work out you have a better season. If we do survive, next season will be a really exciting time for Wigan."
Source: wigantoday.net
|
