The Secret Diary of Roberto Martinez

A new series of articles (hopefully) by the inimitable Sheikh_Mahand, taking a sideways look at the days in the life of Wigan Athletic boss Roberto Martinez, over to you Sheikh:

The Secret Diary of Roberto Martinez

As a bit of fun, and to get away from some of the infighting on the Wigan Athletic message boards in recent weeks, I present Episode 1 of The Secret Diary of Roberto Martinez, aged 37 1/2.

I'm (almost) certain none of this has happened, it's all firmly tongue in cheek, and there may well be further episodes if you guys like them.

Monday: Poor Jordi. Gary and Steven keep dressing up as Karl Henry and scaring him. I threatened to take away their Tennent`s Special Brew rations if they don`t stop, which seemed to calm them down. They wandered off to deep fry Jordi`s boots, leaving me and Graham to try and soothe Jordi. He`ll be having nightmares about that for weeks, I just hope his panic attacks don`t come back. It took months for him to grow out of those.

Tuesday: Young James and Old James are getting worse and worse. They keep bickering over the DVD player at the training ground, Young James wants to watch Balamory but Old James wants the Tweenies. It quickly descended into a petty fight, Young James slapped Old James, Old James kicked Young James on his bad knee. I had to get Steve Gohouri to break it up, he had to grab one in each hand and pin them against a wall for six hours before they got bored and fell asleep.

Wednesday: I`ve been asking the chairman to get us a coach with European experience to help in our fight against relegation. I`m not sure he quite understood, because there was a big Volvo bus parked outside Christopher Park this morning. Apparently it was the one that took Aston Villa to play Dynamo Berlin in the 1982 European Cup. Not sure what to do with it, considering playing it in goal on Saturday.

Thursday: I had a call from Steve Bruce today about buying some of our players. He said he would offer a massive £13 for Charles, and would throw in a multipack of Quavers to take Hugo too. I told him he had the wrong number, denied we had any players called Charles or Hugo and shouted the number for Tesco`s helpline down the phone before I hung up. That reminds me, I must double our patrols outside the big cage in Rigaletto`s basement; we don`t want Sunderland taking Charles or Hugo without us knowing.

Friday: Daniel de Ridder is acting more and more strangely. We really must get him to shave off his soul patch. Today he rode into training on the back of a camel, insisting he was one of the Three Kings reincarnated. He refused to get off until he could see 'the saviour` and present him with his gifts. We almost called the police but Victor appeared from the changing rooms, Daniel dropped to his knees and started chanting. He pulled out his 'gift` for the 'saviour`, which he insisted was Myrrh. I`m fairly sure it was just the insides of a sherbet dibdab.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.