As if three promotions in as many years weren’t enough for Wrexham, the north Wales club co-owned by Hollywood stars Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds are enjoying another memorable campaign.
Sitting seventh in the Championship table, very much in the race for one of four places in the end-of-season promotion play-offs, manager Phil Parkinson’s team are firmly in the hunt to go up for a fourth season running and compete at Premier League level. It’s remarkable how far they have come.
They’re also on a wild ride in this season’s FA Cup and, having seen off top-flight Nottingham Forest and fellow second-tier promotion chasers Ipswich Town to get to the last 16, could a Hollywood ending be in sight there, too? (Spoiler alert: probably not — at least according to the odds. More on that later.)
Of course, Wrexham’s rise isn’t your typical football fairytale. They have been significantly bankrolled by Mac and Reynolds, not to mention fellow co-owners the New York-based Allyn family and Apollo Sports Capital (ASC), one of the biggest investment firms in the world.
Nonetheless, Wrexham have surged up the divisions quicker than anyone would have envisaged when Mac and Reynolds took over at The Racecourse Ground in February 2021, when the club were in the fifth tier of the domestic game.
Wrexham have had to evolve their squad quickly to handle the demands of Championship football. The likes of Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer and James McClean, heroes of their climb through the leagues, have been shed to bring in higher-calibre players. The club have spent around £38million on new signings this season alone. Some of those moves have been more successful than others, but the club’s ambition cannot be doubted.
Phil Parkinson has guided Wrexham from fifth tier to second since 2023 but faces a battle to keep his players focused on their Premier League promotion chase in the coming weeks after drawing Chelsea in the FA Cup (Harriet Massey/Getty Images)
Nathan Broadhead was Wrexham’s marquee addition last summer, arriving from an Ipswich side newly relegated from the Premier League in a club-record £10million ($13.6m at the current rate) deal. So far, though, the 27-year-old Welsh international forward has underwhelmed, scoring just four times in 24 league appearances.
Instead, his Wales team-mate and fellow summer 2025 arrival Kieffer Moore has been the driving force behind Wrexham’s season to date, with 10 goals in 29 Championship games. The 6ft 5in (196cm) 33-year-old striker is the attacking focal point Parkinson’s system needed.
At the back, Dominic Hyam is another signing from that window who has bedded in quickly. Indeed, the 30-year-old Scotland international has started all 27 league matches since his September debut and is the centrepiece in a back three.
Ben Sheaf, Callum Doyle, Lewis O’Brien and Josh Windass have also contributed to varying degrees too in their debut years at the club, but several members of Wrexham’s core from previous seasons remain as a central pillar of Parkinson’s side.
Nobody has played more league minutes for them this season (2,700) than Max Cleworth, a 23-year-old graduate of Wrexham’s youth academy, Arthur Okonkwo is their first-choice goalkeeper as he was in 2023-34 in League Two and last season in League One while George Dobson is still a lynchpin in central midfield having been signed in summer 2024 following their promotion to the third tier.
Parkinson has done a good job of strengthening Wrexham without doing too much all at once. It would have been easy to destabilise the foundations of the past few years.
By making the fifth round of this season’s FA Cup, Wrexham have already shown their ability to compete against quality opposition.
Their third-round victory over Forest in a penalty shootout made waves, as did the dismissal of Ipswich last weekend to set up a meeting with reigning Club World Cup champions Chelsea next month at The Racecourse.
With the world watching, Wrexham could make another big statement.
At 9/2, they are clear underdogs to make it past visitors currently fifth in the Premier League and continue their FA Cup run, and their price of 100/1 to win the whole thing at May’s Wembley final also underlines how unlikely it is that any more cup magic will be conjured up.
Wrexham’s promotion odds of 22/1 are certainly shorter, but suggest Parkinson and his players still have a lot of work ahead of them to have a genuine chance of going up and delivering the club’s first-ever season of top-flight football.
Before facing Chelsea in the FA Cup on the weekend of March 7-8, Wrexham will take on Ipswich (currently fourth), Portsmouth, Charlton Athletic and Watford in a run of fixtures that could go a long way to determining their promotion chances.
Recent defeats at home to Norwich City and Millwall have been damaging, with the Welsh outfit now outside the top six having played a match more than Hull City in fifth spot and two more than Ipswich. They would have pulled themselves back into the play-off positions had they held on for an away win at Bristol City on Tuesday, but an 89th-minute equaliser meant settling for a 2-2 draw.
Some of Wrexham’s underlying numbers suggest they are overperforming. Indeed, they are ranked 13th in the 24-team Championship for expected-goals difference, per FotMob, and 18th for the lowest expected-goals conceded. Although for ‘Big Chances’, Wrexham are ranked sixth, above their actual position of seventh. This suggests their finishing is letting them down a little too often.
While Wrexham might ultimately be squeezed out of a top-six finish by some of the teams around them in the table, they are very much in the mix to make the play-offs with 14 league games to go and their FA Cup run suggests Parkinson’s approach possibly works best in knockout ties.
On their current trajectory, it’s possible — maybe even likely — that Wrexham will be in the Premier League before long. They are putting in the groundwork (quite literally in the case of the new Kop stand) for further success.
This season might be too early for Wrexham to take the next step in their incredible journey up through the divisions. Achieving four promotions in four years may be too much.
They have, however, been doubted before. Few thought they would win promotion from League One at the first attempt two seasons ago. Even going back to their promotion from non-League in summer 2023, Wrexham were warned about the higher standards awaiting them in the EFL.
Six months in, the Welsh side look at home at a second-division level and could rise even further. The Premier League is calling their name.
