Wrexham were just 180 minutes into the Championship season when the soul searching began.
‘Too soft’ in defending, in the eyes of boss Phil Parkinson, and ‘naive’ in other moments when they tried to win matches late on.
After throwing away at two-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Sheffield Wednesday, exasperated players lay flat on their backs seeking answers as some boos rang around the Racecourse Ground.
The first month back in the second tier, their first time at this level in 43 years, has not been without incident on and off the pitch.
From one win across four league games, a dramatic cup run that could yet end at Wembley, a PR disaster, multiple players going under the knife, promotion heroes shipped out, and a transfer window that put the rest of Europe on notice, those in charge of Disney’s Welcome to Wrexham documentary will have been rubbing their hands together.
Here, Daily Mail Sport lifts the lid on a chaotic August in North Wales.
Wrexham’s first month back in the second tier, their first time at this level in 43 years, has not been without incident on and off the pitch
Phil Parkinson labelled his side ‘too soft’ in defending after they surrendered a two-goal advantage against Sheffield Wednesday last month
SPLASHING THE CASH
When chief executive Michael Williamson sat down with co-chairmen Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac during the off-season to map out their transfer budget, a variety of options were put forward.
One budget to avoid relegation, one budget to reach midtable and one to manage a play-off push. The answer from the Hollywood duo was clear: how much to get into the top two?
While they were ultimately talked down from that incredibly ambitious ledge – which would see Wrexham pull off a truly historic fourth straight promotion – cash has very much been king in North Wales this summer.
What started out at the beginning of pre-season as plans to gradually freshen up the squad morphed into a £32million window that became all about total reconstruction.
Wrexham’s eventual net spend was higher than European giants Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund, while 40 per cent of clubs in the Bundesliga, LaLiga, Ligue 1 and Serie A spent less than £10m this summer. Wrexham spent close to that just on record signing Nathan Broadhead from Ipswich Town.
The early weeks of the season in losses to Southampton and West Brom, as well as a draw to Sheffield Wednesday, exposed plenty of shortcomings. Five of Wrexham’s 13 signings arrived after the opening-day defeat at St Mary’s.
Midfield became a real area of focus for Williamson, Parkinson and non-executive director Shaun Harvey, a key figure on the transfer front, after being comfortably outplayed in that area in the first three matches.
The net was cast wide with the deadline approaching with West Ham’s Andy Irving and Rennes’ midfielder Jordan James both concrete targets. Southampton’s Will Smallbone, who joined Millwall on the final day of the window, was another.
Wrexham co-owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds have presided over another summer of lavish spending
Daily Mail Sport also understands that free agent and former Premier League star Nathan Redmond was also offered up to Wrexham.
Keeping targets under wraps is increasingly difficult these days with the amount of eyes locked on Wrexham and it was Reynolds’ Instagram account that gave away the midfielder they would push the boat out for when it emerged he had followed Coventry City midfielder Ben Sheaf.
The Arsenal academy graduate, who spent seven years with the Gunners, joined for £6.5m, the second most expensive signing in Wrexham’s history to partner ex-Premier League midfielder Lewis O’Brien, in for an initial £3m, in midfield.
To contextualise the window, which saw Wrexham miss out on targets such as Zak Vyner after having three bids rejected for the Bristol City defender, is to show that their two-year plan to reach the Premier League, as previously revealed by Daily Mail Sport, is firmly on track.
Dom Hyam, who was the final player through the door and a player that kept Parkinson and Wrexham’s executives in the boardroom until past 10pm on Deadline Day, was a late pivot that provides a wealth of experience after playing every minute of the Championship campaign for Blackburn Rovers last season.
Some fans even tried to hide behind piles of dirt outside the Wrexham Lager Stand to catch a glimpse of Hyam late on – only to discover he was in Glasgow, where he would undergo his medical, with the Scotland national team. The mini crowd soon dispersed.
By the time the deadline shut, Wrexham had 29 senior players contracted to them. Sixteen of them were not at the club at the start of 2025, which underlined the reconstructive surgery this squad has undergone.
Many of the promotion heroes – Tom O’Connor, Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer, Jacob Mendy, Mark Howard, Jack Marriott, George Evans, Seb Revan and Steven Fletcher among them – were ruthlessly shipped out. They recouped as little as £150,000.
Many of the promotion heroes were ruthlessly shipped out. They recouped as little as £150,000
Seven of their 13 summer signings have featured at international level and six have played in the Premier League, many of them having worn the captain’s armband at one stage which was a key focus in the recruitment meetings.
‘We want to be aggressive (in the transfer market),’ Reynolds told me from his home after sealing promotion from League One.
‘We’ve reached the point where we can survive in the Championship, but we want to thrive in the Championship,’ Williamson told the Financial Times over the summer.
They certainly haven’t spent just to make up the numbers this season, that much is for sure.
Ins: Ryan Hardie (£700,000), Danny Ward (Free), Liberato Cacace (£2.16m), George Thomason (£1.2m), Josh Windass (Free), Lewis O’Brien (£3m), Conor Coady (£2m), Kieffer Moore (£2m), Nathan Broadhead (£7.5m), Callum Doyle (£5m), Ben Sheaf (£6.5m), Dom Hyam (£2.7m), Issa Kabore (Loan).
Outs: Sam Dalby, Mark Howard, Steven Fletcher, Jordan Davies, Will Boyle, Luke McNicholas, Luke Bolton, Jack Marriott, Paul Mullin (loan), Jake Bickerstaff (Loan), Mo Faal (Loan), Seb Revan (Loan), Callum Edwards (Loan), Tom O’Connor (Loan) and Jacob Mendy (Loan).
Rival fans spotted No 1 goalkeeper Danny Ward in a service station McDonald’s in his full kit with his arm in a sling, after being taken to the hospital for a dislocated elbow
INJURIES TAKE THEIR TOLL
To Wrexham’s many detractors, the sight of a handful of these new signings writhing around in pain was met with delight and glee, particularly on social media. But back in North Wales it has been a source of immense frustration and one that has seen the necessary gelling of a whole new team badly delayed.
Kieffer Moore suffered a nasty injury in the opening day defeat to Southampton and was feared to have sustained ligament damage. Liberato Cacace picked up a hamstring problem after just one match. George Thomason is yet to kick a ball for Wrexham since joining from Bolton Wanderers. Josh Windass pulled his hamstring inside 30 minutes of the second league game against West Brom. Broadhead missed the Millwall game through injury.
It was after Millwall, too, where rival fans spotted No 1 goalkeeper Danny Ward in a service station McDonald’s in his full kit with his arm in a sling, after being taken to the hospital for a dislocated elbow.
‘Players and staff know that,’ Moore said of rivals actively rooting for this expensively assembled Wrexham side to fall flat on their face.
‘It’s something we can use really. Pressure is a privilege, to have that on your shoulders and to wear the shirt is a massive honour.
‘Each and every person will use that to improve the team and the results will come. I can promise that. I know what this club wants to achieve and we’re all working really hard to do that.’
That is six of the 13 new arrivals – three are yet to play for the club – that have sustained injuries of varying severity and those add to player of the season Ollie Rathbone facing months on the sidelines after sustaining an ankle injury in pre-season and striker Jay Rodriguez recovering from surgery. Midfielder Andy Cannon continues to face a long road back after an ACL injury.
Wrexham have gone out and bought an entire new XI this summer – but they can ill-afford to have half of them teaming up in the treatment room if they are to make some noise in the Championship this season.
Kieffer Moore admitted that players and staff know that rivals are actively rooting for this expensively assembled Wrexham side to fall flat on their face
CUP MAGIC
Early signs in the season showed Wrexham with a soft underbelly, the opposite of what has been their strength in recent years.
In the opening four league matches they rank 22nd for average possession with just 40.6 per cent – only Derby County and Oxford United are seeing less of the ball. They have the highest Expected Goals Against (11.1) and are dead last for possession won in the final third per match.
What the Carabao Cup provided was an opportunity for those who have been on the journey to this point to show the new faces how gritty and determined Wrexham have come to be.
At home against Hull City in the first round Wrexham were 3-1 down heading into stoppage time when Ollie Palmer, who was at one time the club-record signing for £300,000 (already 25 times less than it is now), scored twice to force a penalty shootout that Wrexham won. It would be his final acts for the club where he spent three glorious seasons, and he has since departed for League Two Swindon Town.
In round two it was a similar story of being outplayed for large spells – and conceding – before Moore struck a 92nd-minute winner to knock out Championship rivals Preston on the road. Wrexham are into the third round for the first time since 1981-82.
While Parkinson won’t say it publicly, having taken Bradford City all the way to the final back in 2013 – via wins over Arsenal and Aston Villa – nobody in North Wales is ruling out their own fairytale run, with League One Reading up next.
Parkinson made a full 11 changes for both Carabao Cup matches to date but those games sent a timely reminder of what this club can do best as a disruptor that bled into the first league win against Millwall.
Now the challenge is to try and trouble the game’s elite.
While Parkinson won’t say it publicly, nobody in North Wales is ruling out their own fairytale run, with League One Reading up next
PR DISASTER FIXED BY HOLLYWOOD
While it was Reynolds who inadvertently leaked the signing of Sheaf it was Mac, formerly McElhenney, who took centre stage when it came to cleaning up the PR disaster around the Sheffield Wednesday fixture.
Wrexham initially drew the ire of football fans all over when they refused Sheffield Wednesday supporters displaying a banner in the away end due to ‘political connotations’.
The banner read ‘SWFC FOR SALE – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’. An internal review saw the call reversed.
But Mac, with the help of Williamson, wanted to go one step further by helping financially support the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust, who are protesting against the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri.
Mac posted on X, formerly Twitter, to his 1.1 million followers that any profits made on sales of last season’s gold third shirt would be donated to the SWST. Fans on both sides bought the jersey en masse.
In the end the SWST received £37,500 from the profit of the gold shirt sales, while Wrexham agreed to match that amount with a separate donation to the Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
While Mac’s intervention raised some eyebrows in executive circles – appearing to publicly go against a fellow owner is a no-no – it was an enormous hit with supporters and once again reinforced the community focus that the Hollywood duo are at pains to maintain despite a rapid ascension of the divisions.
‘They remember where they came from,’ Sheffield Wednesday boss Henrik Pedersen said after their 2-2 draw.
Mac, formerly McElhenney, helped quell a potential PR disaster involving Sheffield Wednesday supporters
‘And what they have been through in their life. On the way up, you remember how it was in the past. They show a big, big respect to us by what they did with the shirt, what they did in the stadium.’
Hitting the right notes off the pitch is one thing, now they must hit them on it.
