Wrexham’s first home league win since April will breathe new life into their season – The Athletic
Not just a much-needed first home league win of the season for Wrexham but also precious breathing space, considering what is up next for Phil Parkinson’s side.
Back-to-back meetings with the Championship’s early pace-setters are daunting at the best of times. But at least Nathan Broadhead’s winner against Oxford United means Wrexham can approach the double-header against Middlesbrough and Coventry City, the latter taking place at the SToK Cae Ras on Halloween, with a renewed sense of belief.
This would not have been the case had Wrexham’s longest winless start to an EFL season on home soil been extended to six games by Oxford on a night when the hosts played the final quarter of the match a man down following Callum Doyle’s red card.
Wrexham now sit 15th in the table, level on points with pre-season title favourites Ipswich Town and five points clear of Norwich City in the final relegation place. The cagey nature of the game is reflected in the match dashboard below.
“We’re competitive at this level,” said Parkinson, who was without midfielders Ben Sheaf and Ollie Rathbone on Wednesday due to slight strains picked up in training.
“There are better quality players at this level but we have good players. I am generally enjoying working with this group and getting to know them. They’re a good set of lads who care a lot.”
Callum Doyle’s foul on Siriki Dembele resulted in a red card for the Wrexham player (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
The gear shift that Wrexham were going to have to perform in the Championship was always likely to be a marked one. After three seasons of winning most weeks, the chances of going full pelt once again were slim, even after a summer that saw an unprecedented £33million ($44m) spent on new signings.
Defeats and disappointment were likely to be part of the mix alongside the winning feeling that everyone connected with Wrexham has got so used to since Parkinson took charge.
So it has proved. Thirteen points from 11 games is a steady, if unspectacular, return for a club that had racked up hauls of 111, 88 and 92 when making history with those three consecutive promotions.
Could it have been more? Of course. No team in the Championship has lost more than the nine points Wrexham have dropped from a winning position this term, a damaging trait that began on the opening day at Southampton when two stoppage-time goals turned a 1-0 win into a dramatic loss.
Equally, though, there have been many finely balanced games involving where either side could have prevailed, with both Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham City finishing much the stronger in draws in north Wales.
Oxford will surely have spent the journey home bemoaning how they failed to capitalise on Doyle’s rush of blood when lunging recklessly at Siriki Dembele. Their inability to fashion high-quality chances can be seen in the expected goals timeline below.
In the end, Wrexham were full value for the three points that at least wiped their name off the list of teams still waiting for a home win. Derby County had done the same 24 hours earlier, leaving Norwich, Blackburn Rovers and Sheffield Wednesday as the remaining clubs yet to triumph on home soil.
For a handful of teams from the same division to reach the 10-game mark of the season last weekend without a home victory is unusual. For context, only the bottom team in League Two, Newport County, among the EFL’s other 48 clubs, are also waiting to taste victory on home soil this time around.
The last time this happened in the Championship before this season was 2013-14, when Derby, Middlesbrough, Bolton Wanderers, Wednesday and Yeovil Town all failed to win any of their first five home matches.
Such a slow start proved fatal to Yeovil, who went on to finish bottom of the table after being made to wait until October 26 for their first Huish Park victory at the seventh attempt.
As for the rest, Derby rallied to finish a remarkable third (eventually losing to Queens Park Rangers in the play-off final), while Middlesbrough (12th), Bolton (14th) and Wednesday (16th) claimed a respectable mid-table berth.
Phil Parkinson will hope this result allows his side to kick on (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
Proof, if it were needed, that nothing is decided in October, especially in a division like the Championship, where unpredictability rules to such an extent that the three strongly fancied relegated sides sit ninth (Leicester City), 14th (Ipswich) and 18th (Southampton) with almost a quarter of the campaign gone.
Parkinson’s side can take heart from their efforts against Oxford, especially in the first half as the visitors struggled.
What Wednesday evening’s triumph also does is quieten the distracting outside noise that such a newsworthy club invariably attracts. We have seen it already this season via an erroneous media report that Parkinson’s future was under threat that appeared just minutes after the loss to QPR on September 13, something club director Shaun Harvey branded a “disgrace” when talking to the Fearless in Devotion podcast a few days later.
The best way to silence such talk is on the pitch. If Wrexham are in mid-table and looking upwards, as they are ahead of facing the top two, such distractions do not occur.
Which is why the win over Oxford could prove to be a pivotal one, providing of course it is backed up in the four league fixtures before the next international break.
