a ten-man Wigan side. Their League form remained poor, and a 4–0 defeat at Aston Villa on 5 April left them in 18th place, two points adrift of safety. But they proceeded to take 11 points from their last five games (including a 1–1 draw at Chelsea on the final day of the season) to secure survival in the Premier League – the first time Megson had achieved this as a manager. Megson won the Premier League Manager of the Month award for November 2008. Heading into the 2008–09 season, he brought in players such as Johan Elmander for a club record £8.2m, Fabrice Muamba from Birmingham City for £5m, Mustapha Riga from Levante, Danny Shittu for £2m and Ebi Smolarek on a season-long loan from Racing Santander with a view to a permanent deal. Bolton started the season unremarkably and by October Bolton were looking set for another relegation scrap. This caused increasing pressure on Megson but he was given time by Chairman Phil Gartside and managed to improve results, leading Bolton to a high of eighth in the league. On 1 March 2009, it was announced that Megson had agreed a new rolling contract with Bolton. He celebrated his new contract with a 1–0 victory over Newcastle United. Bolton finished 13th in the 2008–09 season. During the summer of 2009 Megson added to the Trotters' squad with the additions of Portsmouth midfielder Sean Davis on a free transfer, Hull City's Welsh right-back Sam Ricketts, Aston Villa's England international defender Zat Knight for £4m, veteran left-back Paul Robinson on loan from West Brom and the South Korean international Lee Chung-Yong. Just before the transfer window closed he added the Croatian international Ivan Klasnić from FC Nantes on a season long loan. In the 2009 season, under Megson's tenure, he started the season in an inauspicious manner with defeats to Hull City and Sunderland before seeing excellent form in the next seven games. These games saw three wins, two draws and narrow defeats to Manchester United and Liverpool. After 25 October, Bolton lost five out of the next six games. The first three were losses by four goals and these were followed by a home defeat to Blackburn, a draw against Fulham and an away defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers. In a period which lasted almost fifty days without a win Bolton played Manchester City and were scheduled games against other