Wrexham blew the chance to go top of League One on Thursday evening with a 2-1 defeat to Shrewsbury Town.
The Athletic picks out the talking points from a telling few days for Wrexham, who succumbed to a goal in each half from John Marquis, the second a tap-in after Arthur Okonkwo had saved the striker’s penalty. Steven Fletcher netted for the visitors.
Wrexham need that new striker, and fast…
Defeat in this cross-border derby hurts. The pain can also linger for a long time, as anyone from Wrexham unfortunate enough to be inside Shrewsbury’s then relatively new home in April 2008, as the Welsh club were nudged towards the EFL relegation trapdoor, will surely attest.
The memory of this defeat may not quite endure as much as that lifeless 3-0 loss, but the post-mortems were still underway long before the dejected travelling fans had started the short trip home.
Eoghan O’Connell’s role in both Shrewsbury goals was high on most culpability lists, as was a distinct lack of creativity in midfield and a failure to pose any kind of threat down the left side when Ryan Barnett was causing havoc down the opposite flank.
Up against these failings, an attacking unit that by stoppage time had four strikers on the field actually had an OK night. Not only did Fletcher maintain his standing as League One’s deadliest striker on goals-per-minutes, but Jack Marriott also made a welcome, if rather rusty, return to action after breaking his leg in mid-October.
Nevertheless, if there’s one big takeaway from Thursday’s loss, it is the now pressing need to bolster that attacking stable with the big powerful forward that has been wanted by Parkinson since last summer, when number one target Michael Smith could not be prised from Sheffield Wednesday.
Five goals and six assists since then in the Championship have underlined the 33-year-old’s quality, especially as the 6ft 4in (193cm) striker has started only nine times due to being down the pecking order.
If Wrexham still want Smith — and all indications suggest they do — the events of Wednesday evening at Hillsborough may well have thrown a further spanner in the works after a five-hour fans’ forum featuring chairman Dejphon Chansiri laid bare his fall-out with Danny Rohl, the club’s popular manager.
Not only did Chansiri reveal he had not spoken to Rohl since December, but he also made clear this lack of communication extended to transfers in January.
Good luck to anyone hoping to negotiate with the Yorkshire club this month. Maybe time, therefore, to move on in the pursuit of that striker, especially with Fletcher’s ongoing knee issues meaning there surely can’t be many more 90 minutes in the 37-year-old after he played the full game at Shrewsbury.
Ollie Rathbone reacts to a miss against Shrewsbury (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Business as usual over Colombian addition
Another year and another addition to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s portfolio of football club involvements after a deal to buy Colombian top-flight side La Equidad was completed by a consortium featuring the pair.
As happened following the Hollywood duo’s acquisition of a minority stake in Mexican outfit Club Necaxa last year, plenty have been asking what this will mean for Wrexham. The reality is very little.
A broadening of the ‘Welcome to…’ franchise that has been so successful in turning Wrexham into a global sporting phenomenon via three series of the award-winning documentary is more than likely.
There may well be a few more celebrities popping up at the SToK Cae Ras, as happened when former Desperate Housewives actor Eva Longoria — part-owner of Necaxa and now a fellow investor in La Equidad — joined Reynolds and McElhenney for the opening-day win over Wycombe Wanderers.
But, in terms of day-to-day operations, it’s very much business as usual in Wrexham, with chief executive Michael Williamson, director Shaun Harvey and the rest of the staff focusing solely on the Welsh club, where — unlike Necaxa and La Equidad — Reynolds and McElhenney are the majority shareholders.
How to cope with a schedule that’s “new territory”
The road towards promotion is never easy, as Thursday’s derby trip across the border underlined. We can now add a lopsided League One schedule to the obstacles being put in the path of Parkinson’s men.
No game for 12 days and then playing back-to-back Thursdays is just not what teams at this level are used to facing. Throw in how Wrexham are facing four blank weekends out of five and not one single home game in February and it spells plenty of logistical headaches for the Welsh club and their manager.
“New territory for us,” admits Parkinson. “Back-to-back Thursday games is probably a first for the club. It would be unusual for anyone at this level, I’d imagine. But we’ve planned things as much as we can.”
The increasing influence of TV on the calendar the higher a team rises in the English pyramid partly explains such a scattergun schedule, with Sky Sports wanting to show both the derby clash at Shrewsbury and next week’s six-pointer at home to Birmingham City live in their new EFL Thursday slot.
As a result, both games were brought forward from the Saturday. The other two blank weekends can be put down to the FA Cup, with both Reading and Leyton Orient — Wrexham’s scheduled opponents on January 11 and February 8 respectively — otherwise engaged.
A short-notice postponement of the EFL Trophy tie at Port Vale on January 7 also caused a further headache, not least because it meant rushing those who were due to play back to the SToK Cae Ras for an impromptu evening session under the lights before giving the entire squad a few days off.
“Balancing the week is key,” explains Parkinson. “Me and (assistant) Steve Parkin both like a two-day build-up towards matches. Some teams are OK with one day, so if it’s a Saturday, they’ll have Thursday off.
“But I’ve always preferred the two days, as it gives you sufficient time to concentrate fully. That’s why a typical week involves training Monday, Tuesday, then Wednesday off, before training Thursday and Friday.
“That’s had to be pulled forward this week, with Monday off, followed by training Tuesday and Wednesday. We’ll be training Saturday and Sunday to keep us in a natural pattern ahead of Birmingham.”
Who’s next?
Birmingham City at home on Thursday, January 23. Will we see Tom Brady in north Wales?
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
