MARTINEZ ALWAYS KNEW WE’D BEAT CITY IN FINAL

ROBERTO MARTINEZ was so confident Wigan would beat Manchester City in the 2013 FA Cup final that owner Dave Whelan put his shirt on it. Whelan’s grandson and chairman David Sharpe is one of the few Wembley survivors left at Wigan, and recalls how ex-boss Martinez (left) predicted the Latics’ famous win. Sharpe, who was 22 on the day of the final, says Martinez spotted a weakness at full-back, when Wigan played City a few weeks earlier in the league, and exploited it to mastermind their historic 1-0 victory.

“I remember we played Man City about three weeks before,” he said. “We got beat 1-0, but played really well and only lost to a late goal.

“After the game, the next day, I was having a coffee with Roberto and he said to me: ‘I saw something last night, we’ll beat them in the final’.

“He saw something tactical with the full-backs and how to get behind them. That must have given him a bit of confidence. Still, I didn’t imagine it would have gone as well as it did.”

Sharpe (right) revealed he took Whelan to Harrods on the morning of the final to buy a shirt to look smart at Wembley.

“He had this shirt he always wore, so we took him into Harrods, me and my stepdad, to get a new, expensive one,” he said. “We told him to choose the nicest shirt. He looked at all these different shirts and picked out a Canali shirt, didn’t see the price, took it to the till, and was told it was £485. “He said, ‘Bugger that!’, and went and found a £50 one. “For after the game, grandad had booked the restaurant, Scalini, and when he went in, every person in the restaurant stood up and applauded him.” Whelan, 81, will watch tonight’s match in a bar in Barbados, where he has a house, and is in the process of selling his beloved Latics to a Hong Kong-based group.

Sharpe, who succeeded him as chairman aged just 23 in 2015, claims they want to protect Wigan’s ethos as a family club as a condition of any deal.

“That’s the priority,” he added. “It’s not about value for us. It’s more about finding the right people we feel will continue what we’ve put in place.”