During their gilded Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney era, Wrexham have made a habit of going places quickly.
In April, they finished second in League One, becoming the first club in English football history to jump from the fifth tier to the second in consecutive seasons. The leap to the Championship represents their biggest so far in terms of quality.
Supporters, locals from north-east Wales and overseas fans drawn in by the Disney fairytale have learned not to place a limit on their dreams. A few years ago, the Championship seemed a galaxy away; now, here they are, the Premier League closer than ever before.
“There’s always this mixture between being rational and realistic based on history and data, and the rest of it. But the other bit is, we are Hollywood, why not?” jokes Wrexham transfer consultant Les Reed about the prospect of another promotion.
Investment, as cynics are always eager to point out, has helped fuel Wrexham’s rapid rise, but so has consistently excellent decision-making. The appointment of Phil Parkinson as manager was a masterstroke, and player recruitment has largely been superb.
Drawing on Reed’s decades of experience has also been inspired. Reed, who oversaw Southampton’s ascent from League One to Premier League and worked for the FA across three spells, has been a board advisor since 2021, when Wrexham were a National League club.
Much of his work is “undercover”. “You won’t see me on the [Welcome to Wrexham] documentary!” But he has helped steer club strategy, with recruitment and re-establishing an academy that was dissolved in non-league falling within his remit.
“When Rob and Ryan invested in the club, there was nothing there and hadn’t been for years,” Reed tells The i Paper.
“There was no finance available to employ scouts or employ analysts. There was no training ground. Everything was the bare minimum.
“The infrastructure off the pitch still hasn’t caught up with the success of the team. It’s a completely different way of operating because we just haven’t had the time to build up this modern recruitment department.”
With the structure still evolving, Reed, Parkinson, his assistant Steve Parkin, and others have had to lean on their contacts to bring in players to improve the team.
They also use Wyscout, the popular video analysis database, and SkillCorner, an AI platform that provides exhaustive data on players from around the globe, to identify and analyse prospective transfer targets.
Their approach to recruitment may be atypical, but it has clearly worked. From the outside, their policy has appeared Galactico-lite, defined by high-profile signings who have turbo-charged their climb.
Plenty have dropped down the leagues to join Wrexham’s journey up them. Prolific goalscorer Paul Mullin traded League One for the National League; ex-Premier League players James McClean, Jay Rodriguez, and Steven Fletcher were lured to the third tier.
In general, Wrexham have prioritised experience over youth as part of their get success quick scheme. Only Mansfield and Shrewsbury named older starting line-ups in League One than Wrexham last season. That policy will be tweaked slightly this summer.
“In the Championship, they [new signings] will need to be athletic. It’s not swansong land for players who are having one more go before they retire,” says Reed, who is also co-director for the PFA’s sports directorship course.
“Our ambition will be to drive the average age down, but at the same time remain competitive. We can’t just go ‘that’s it, we’re only going for younger players’. A couple of clubs recently – and I won’t mention their names – have done that, and it hasn’t worked. It will be a mix.”
If Wrexham deem potential buys to be fit enough to compete in one of Europe’s most physically demanding leagues, age will not necessarily matter. “James McClean is still running around like a 25-year-old,” Reed says of the club’s 36-year-old captain.
However, speculation linking Wrexham to big names in their late 30s is wide of the mark, according to Reed.
“Let’s take Jamie Vardy. Everyone thinks he’s out of contract, there’s no transfer fee, Wrexham could do that. You’re talking about players who are on £140,000 a week. We are a million miles away from that because we don’t get Premier League revenues or broadcasting money,” Reed says.
“I think we were linked with Kevin De Bruyne at one stage!” he adds. “There is a certain level of Premier League player who, if they are on £100k to 150k-a-week, are still going to get close to that if they move to the MLS or Saudi Arabia than if they go to Wrexham.”
That isn’t to say that the Championship newcomers won’t spend or be ambitious. They are in a strong financial position after announcing revenues of £26m in April.
“We will have a decent budget,” Reed says. “Everyone externally thinks we’ve got an unlimited budget because of our owners, but that’s not true. We’ll have a good budget simply because we’ve got very good revenues.
“That’s the benefit of the owners. It’s not their deep pockets, it’s their ability to generate higher revenues, which enables us to spend within the regulations and offer decent salaries.”
Competing with rival Championship clubs for talent will be testing, but Reed is confident that Wrexham are a pull for players.
The “Rob and Ryan” effect, raucous Racecourse atmosphere, and award-winning documentary series are all part of Wrexham’s USP. Rapid progress on the pitch and lofty ambitions to go even further are also in the brochure.
They are on the lookout for “Championship-proven” players, ideally in their 20s rather than 30s, with the “potential to grow and be with us on the journey to the Premier League”.
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Invariably, as Wrexham strengthen, there will be casualties, possibly club legend Mullin among them.
The 30-year-old scored 88 league goals in his first three seasons to propel Wrexham from the National League to League One, but managed just three in the third-tier last term.
Influential players have gone and been replaced before. Ben Tozer was a “magnificent captain” in League Two, but left for non-league Forest Green.
“Having those characters in your experienced players is very important, but they have to be able to play at the level you’re playing at,” Reed says, speaking in general terms.
Predicting whether an accomplished League One player can make the step up is tricky. Reed cites Rickie Lambert as an example; Lambert joined Southampton in League One at 27 and went on to play for England and join Liverpool.
“If they are athletically strong and fit and can compete for their place, then Phil [Parkinson] has been public about this, there’s an opportunity.
“But we’re also trying to build a club and a team that can go further, so there are difficult decisions to make.”
Wrexham have developed quicker than they, or anyone, expected. Those within the club don’t see the Championship as their ceiling. They want to reach the Premier League floor.
“We are definitely aiming high; we mustn’t lose that aspiration and momentum,” Reed says.
“We’re not by any means predicting that we’re going to go [straight] to the Premier League, but we don’t just want to go ‘okay, the journey is over, we’re in the Championship, let’s stabilise and consolidate’.
“We need to get through this window with some good recruitment and establish ourselves, not as a survivor, but as a challenger, i.e. in a good season, could we get into the play-offs?
“We would love to break that record [of four straight promotions] and, given the circumstances, we’ll give it our best shot.”
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