Former Wigan manager Roberto Martinez has joined the calls for an investigation into the decision to place the club in administration.

The Spaniard, who led the Latics to FA Cup glory in 2013 having spent six years as a player at the club between 1995 and 2001, does not believe the timing of the decision by the owners was “normal”.

Local MP Lisa Nandy has written to the Government and the English Football League asking for an inquiry, after the club changed hands last month and was put in administration on July 1.

“There is an opportunity for Paul Cook and his staff and his players to make history in big letters, because this is a very unfair challenge that they have been served on the pitch,” Martinez said.

The 46-year-old, who formed part of the ‘Three Amigos’ alongside fellow Spaniards Isidro Diaz and Jesus Seba when he joined Wigan in the mid-1990s, has no doubt Wigan supporters will pull together to help the team as they have in difficult times before.

“It was a huge decision to leave (Spain) as a young boy, the comfort of your family and your people at the age of 21, come to the British game and feel like home,” he said.

“Wigan Athletic has got that magic as a football club, it’s a family club and it allows you to feel very much at home away from home.

“(The supporters) have been incredible, you look at the way they have supported the team, the way they face adversity.

“This is another chapter of showing the real Wigan Athletic essence – that is to be proud, to help each other and to push to the limit to make sure that the good people that there are in the football club – because there are good people in there now – that they can help the administrators and find the right owner going forward.”