Wrexham season review: Historic promotion, Premier League in sight, scenes at the ‘circus'
Seventeen years to the day since bidding farewell to the Football League at Lincoln City's Sincil Bank, Wrexham's emotions couldn't have been more contrasting on their return.
'Championship, we're on our way…' sang the 1,861 jubilant supporters, many sporting fancy dress, lucky enough to get a ticket for the final act of a season that has seen history made in north Wales.
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A third consecutive promotion, sealed with victory over Charlton Athletic, means Wrexham standalone in the pantheon of fallen EFL clubs who have pulled themselves together in non-League.
Where the unknown lay ahead for the world's third oldest professional club when leaving Lincoln in 2008, now it is new stadiums never visited before such as Leicester City and Southampton on the agenda, plus first league meetings with West Bromwich Albion and Ipswich Town.
Phil Parkinson's side signed off with a 2-0 victory, both goals coming in the second half from Elliot Lee and Ryan Longman. Really, though, Saturday was about much more than the result. It was about a sense of pride restored and a promise of what lays ahead in a division the club last competed in 1982.
'The Championship is one of the most watched leagues in world football,' says Parkinson. 'It's a dream really for this club. A few years ago, we were fighting our way out of the National League but now we are competing at that table.
'Now, it is up to us to prove we can live in that company. Just as we did when coming into League One last season. We showed it then and we have to do it again.'
Thursday June 26 is the date Wrexham fans will have ringed in the summer diary, when the EFL fixtures will be released. Only then can the planning begin for the weekend of August 8-10 and the start of what promises to be a truly momentous campaign at the SToK Cae Ras.
The sense of excitement evident at Lincoln is only likely to grow throughout the summer, judging by the chanted countdown among a travelling band of fans that included one T-Rex, a host of traffic cones and at least three Mexicans, complete with sombreros.
'Sixty minutes to the Championship…' began a chant that continued all the way down to zero and referee Thomas Kirk blowing the final whistle.
As the close season gets under way — and the Wrexham players this week jet out to Las Vegas for their now traditional celebratory trip — it's surely worth one last look-back at 2024-25 and an unprecedented third straight promotion. Here's The Athletic's verdict….
Football's wider public realising just how serious Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds are in their quest to take Wrexham to the top. Talk of the Premier League when a club is languishing in non-League is easily dismissed as fanciful.
Returning to the EFL fold and even the third tier doesn't make it feel any more likely, either, such is the gulf between the top table of English football and Leagues One and Two. Now, though, Wrexham sit just one step away from fulfilling their owners' dream. Remarkable considering it's just two years since Parkinson's side signed off their stint in non-League at Torquay United, who on Saturday were competing in the National League South play-offs.
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Unlike previous campaigns when there were plenty of humdingers, this time around has felt to be a much calmer affair. An indication of that comes via the ten 1-0 wins, plus another seven triumphs by a one-goal winning margin.
There's still been plenty of entertainment, mind, with the 1-1 draw at home to champions Birmingham City early in the New Year a fine advert for League One, as was the 2-2 draw away to Charlton in October. We're going for the latter, even if it was Wrexham on the end of some late drama this time via a 96th minute equaliser from the penalty spot.
Sam Smith heading in Wrexham's third goal against Charlton to rubber-stamp promotion. The visitors had never looked like getting back into the game after going 2-0 behind inside 18 minutes but, still, there's always that doubt over how one goal could change everything. Smith heading in Max Cleworth's cross on 81 minutes meant the party could start.
One unheralded aspect about Wrexham's third promotion is how much their discipline has improved compared to the 2023-24 season, when Parkinson's side had six players sent off.
Four of these were straight red cards, the joint highest tally in League Two. To go from such a damning rap sheet to not having even one player dismissed in 46 league fixtures this time around shows how hard the manager has worked on sorting out what had become a problematic area. Only Rotherham United boast an unblemished record in League One this season.
'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,' said James McClean when asked by The Athletic after the Lincoln game what his team-mates who have joined in the last 12 months can expect from this week's players' trip to Sin City.
But we can't look past Charlton manager Nathan Jones' pre-match comments regarding his side's trip to Wrexham on the penultimate weekend. 'It's a bumper game, we have to go to the circus and see what we can get,' he said. One question, Nathan. Why?
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'You've seen the circus, now f*** off home,' came the retort time and time again from a pumped-up Racecourse crowd to Jones, as his Charlton side were well beaten.
Paul Mullin no longer being Wrexham's main man. Just three goals from 26 league appearances (17 from the bench) is not what supporters have to come to expect from the usually free-scoring Liverpudlian and there will be big questions over his future this summer.
Don't write the 30-year-old just yet, mind. He's now missed two consecutive pre-seasons after suffering a collapsed lung and four broken ribs in 2023 and undergoing back surgery last year. If Mullin can have a problem-free run at 2025-26, maybe the goals will flow once again.
Tomoki Iwata. Hands down, the best player Wrexham faced all season. He was immense in the 3-1 win for Birmingham, clearly way too good for this level after joining from Celtic.
A special mention should also go to Lee Gregory and Will Evans, the Mansfield Town strike-force who caused all manner of problems at The Racecourse back in November. Tyler Roberts also carried a real threat despite Northampton Town's 4-1 defeat in October.
Nine. Rarely put a foot wrong and was not worried to make the big calls, particularly at the start of February when a reset was needed after an awful first month of the year had yielded just four points from five games. Out went fans favourites Mullin and Ollie Palmer, as Smith and Jay Rodriguez came in to form a partnership that ultimately got Wrexham over the line via two defeats in 17 games together.
The shift in tactics to effectively 3-5-1-1 in late November may not have won universal backing from supporters. But, again, it worked as Wrexham racked up 92 points, 27 wins and 24 clean sheets thanks to a manager whose mentality was perhaps best summed after the Lincoln game by the man himself. 'I like to win a game of cards against my kids,' says Parkinson.
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Recruitment. There's no doubt this squad needs major surgery to compete in the Championship. Arthur Okonkwo (The Athletic's player of the year), Cleworth and Smith look ready but others may struggle with the step-up.
A recurring theme this summer is likely to be the need to pay players to leave, as there will inevitably be some surplus to requirements who are under contract and unlikely to command anything like their wages at Wrexham. It's a price the club must pay for such a rapid rise.
'Crikey, the Championship is a step-up from anything Wrexham have seen in years. So, to stay up quite comfortably is surely an achievement on a par with those three straight promotions.'
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New York Times
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- New York Times
Brenden Aaronson: My game in my words
This article is part of our My Game In My Words 2025 series, an exclusive set of interviews with USMNT players where they talk us through how they do what they do on a soccer pitch. Brenden Aaronson has a secret which may take admirers of his all-action, lung-busting style by surprise. The Leeds United midfielder doesn't like running. He might lead the press for Daniel Farke's 2024-25 Championship title winners, and routinely cover most of the pitch in his efforts, but the 24-year-old has long been wary of being miscast. Advertisement It is his creative side that flourished during Leeds' triumphant campaign in English football's second tier and, as he gears up for their return to the Premier League next season, he talked The Athletic through his game and how he wants to improve as a provider even further next term. 'I hate running,' Aaronson says. 'I know it seems like I don't, but I just want to get the ball. That's the No 1 thing for me. I'll never do it (run) in the summertime without a ball. I never have enjoyed it but I'm just good at it.' So running may be a necessary evil, but it is part of what makes the USMNT star a physical outlier for his club. Last season, he logged more than 3,500 minutes of game time for Leeds (third-highest of their outfield players) across the 46 Championship matches, and his energy has helped lead the way. That is comfortably the biggest workload of his senior career — he appeared in all 46 games, and started 43 — so how has he stayed so fresh? 'It's knowing your body,' he says. 'I know what I need and the muscles I need to focus on. I run a lot, so calves and hips are always a big thing — keeping on top of the things that get tight. This is the most I've been in the gym for a whole season. It's not easy to keep the weight when you run as much as I do, and as much as a Leeds player does, but I've been working on strength and flexibility.' Not for the first time in our conversation, Aaronson references the 2024-25 Premier League's title-winning top goalscorer as a source of inspiration. 'I read about (Liverpool forward) Mohamed Salah being consistently in the gym,' he says. 'He has an unbelievable build and stature and that constant work on the little things adds up and has made him what he is. It has helped me too. For the hips, it's yoga and massage, because when you're just using foam-rolling it's not always easy to get the spot you need. So deep-tissue massage helps me a lot — the top of the glutes and hips. 'The Leeds physios have been great. Sometimes the pain still gets me but we have a good laugh in the physio room and we haven't had many injuries this season, so credit to those guys behind the scenes. They do a great job.' Aaronson's physical robustness last season is also linked to his mental well-being. 'I put it down to simple things; the support system I have with my fiancee being out here,' he adds. 'A lot of football has to do with those outside things, staying happy. There are so many games and ups and downs, so I always have my fiancee, I have had my friends come to visit and it keeps you going.' Aaronson is typical of many modern attackers in his multi-positional capacity. He has played as a No 10 for Leeds, as a central midfielder and also on the left. Though he primarily played No 10 last season, he would often pull into those half-spaces on either side of midfield too, as shown by his heatmap below. But what does he feel is his best position? 'It's tough to say because I have played so many — mostly at the 10 — but I see myself as a box-to-box midfielder,' he says. 'I defend and I attack. One of the underrated things is when I can pick the ball up in the midfield and drive the team forward. For me, it's also having the freedom in the midfield to go and get the ball, play, turn and have that freedom in between the lines. Advertisement 'So I'd say, ideally, I'd be an eight and a half. 'This formation this season has been a dream position because it's a 4-3-3 in the way the left winger comes into the pocket, I'm in the right pocket, sometimes the eight, who is Joe Rothewell or Illia Gruev, comes into the left pocket. I would compare it to a Liverpool eight, also rotating into the No 10 areas in between the lines and combining with Joel (Piroe, Leeds' striker) too. 'So for me it's a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, and either the 10 or the eight.' Aaronson also believes the approach USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino wants to see from his players mirrors the style of football he himself prefers. 'The shape and the way he wants to play with the ball, combining, pressing and being attacking is the way I want to play,' he says. 'But I've played winger for the attacking team a lot and that's great too, because the winger comes inside a lot as a No 10. Ideally, it'd be as an eight or 10 but if I have to be the winger coming in, that's fine. 'You don't see many wingers staying out wide much but you do with Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona — wide, wide wingers creating space for the others centrally. It's a mixture.' Aaronson picked a good time to deliver his career-best goal haul. His nine for Leeds in 2024-25 was a personal high for a single season, and saw him capitalise on Farke's attacking formation. It was also a case of the old phrase: the harder he worked, the luckier he got. He cites the clinical first-time strike in a 2-1 win over Watford at Elland Road last October, below, as an example. 'This is staying alive to the play always,' he says of how he times his run into the area, latches onto the ball after Wilfried Gnonto's cross is palmed away by goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann and sweeps it first time into the net. 'I'm arriving late in the box. This season, I've had goals from being centrally in the box and that's something I've learnt from the coach: staying centrally in that area,' he says. 'It's smelling it and being in the right place at the right time for where the ball might go. I would say there's a little bit of luck but also sniffing out these opportunities to get on the ball at the top of the box. Advertisement 'I had one (in April's 4-0 home win against Bristol City) when everyone was looking at the ball, but I seized on it and got my shot in, although I put it over the bar. If you watch it, three or four players are watching the ball and I know there's a chance it will come back across, so I got there.' Along with Farke's advice, he also puts his improved goal tally down to putting in extra effort on the training ground. 'Ed Wootten, the goalkeeper coach here, CJ (analysis lead Christopher John) and Eddie (assistant manager Edmund Riemer) have been great,' Aaronson says. 'They let me stay out there and do repetitions and it works for this type of goal. Other clubs will look at the numbers from the weekend and say, 'You ran a certain amount so you can't do this or that during the week (to rest)'. Repetition is huge.' Aaronson models his practice on the near-obsessional attitudes of Premier League icons from the past, and he values Leeds' trust in him to balance that extra training with the necessary recovery time. 'Going back to when Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney were at Man United, do you think they told them to stay off the pitch?' he says. 'They were always doing extra stuff in the Prem back in that era. The clubs never said no. But clubs are saying no a bit now. 'I'd never push myself too much because I want to be playing every game and if I'm injured, I can't.' It has certainly worked. In December, he applied another fine finish to what was a goal-of-the-season contender against Derby County, later called a 'perfect team move' by Farke. 'This is a typical goal from us,' Aaronson says. 'The movement has been so fluid. A lot of teams have sat back and (then) it's difficult to create opportunities but the way we've been structured and our movements were hard to pick up. 'This is a great example, the passes were intricate and very difficult to pick up. It's hard for teams to do much about it. I know Joel Piroe is a striker who wants to combine, and I can run off him. This is a false-nine type of thing. I feel like I'm pretty good at running off him and playing these one-twos. Advertisement 'For me, it's one of the goals of the season. We do a lot of small-sided games and 11 v 11 in really tight areas (in training), so when we're playing on a bigger pitch, it pays off.' Another goal, on the opening weekend of the season in a 3-3 draw with visitors Portsmouth, was a result of Aaronson studying some of the game's best finishers. 'Sometimes I don't shoot enough because I want to give the final pass. But in the summer, I worked a lot on trying to get off my shot,' he says. Three Portsmouth players are between him and the goal as he moves into the penalty area and shapes to shoot after receiving Piroe's pass. 'There are defenders in front here but it goes through their legs,' he adds. 'A little bit of hesitation can throw a defender off and (help you) find a gap. 'It's just shifting to find the angle, and knowing that when you shift the ball, defenders always open their legs. I don't know why — they tell them not to these days, but they always do it. Salah does it all the time. He goes left and then back the way he came, because he knows the defender is going to open his legs. 'The goalie can't see the ball until late either, because it goes through a player's legs. It's not a powerful shot by any means, but it catches him off-guard.' Farke has spoken about calming Aaronson down in crucial moments to ensure he is making the right decisions, and the 47-time U.S. international does feel he is more composed now. 'He (Farke) has spoken to me about it in finishing situations,' he says. 'When I was younger, even though I haven't been a crazy goalscorer, I would always get chances. Even in the Prem season two years ago, I had a lot of chances, but I hit the woodwork a lot. But at the top level, you will only get a couple of chances a game. 'Back in the Premier League I might get one or two chances, max, a game and that's when you have to calm down.' His rapport on and off the field with Dutchman Piroe, the Championship's 19-goal top scorer last season, has helped. 'I have learned from him,' Aaronson says. 'We are always doing finishing together Thursdays and Fridays after training.' The drills are simple but effective: 'I try to keep up with him, because if I play him one v one he's always winning,' he says. 'Maybe once or twice out of 100, I come out first. 'The way he strikes the ball, I always try to learn from.' Aside from his improving attacking output, Farke has valued Aaronson's energy and pressing. He is often the player charged with leading Leeds' pressing game and his influence is especially notable in this next example from that April match against Bristol City. In this passage of play, he and Gnonto get close to two City players near the touchline in opposition territory, and when the visitors' Ross McCrorie makes a short pass to midfield colleague Jason Knight, it is the American's cue to start the press. Knight turns and plays a forward pass through midfield towards team-mate George Earthy. Seeing the opposing winger has space to run into, Aaronson eats up the yards as he sprints to get back: His presence seems to prompt Earthy to turn away from the Leeds goal and play the ball back to his centre-half Haydon Roberts. The defender quickly returns it to Earthy in a one-two but Aaronson is now all over them and closing the space. His example is taken up by Leeds' right-back Jayden Bogle, who gets tight on Earthy and challenges, as Gnonto also zooms back. Advertisement In the end, Earthy is forced to play back towards his own goal again and the ball, deflected off the incoming Gnonto, travels into City's half and goes out for a throw. A potentially dangerous situation has been snuffed out. Aaronson will frequently continue to press as far as the opposing goalkeeper and force him to go long. He is also often tasked with man-marking the opposition's No 10. He explains he is not always the designated pressing lead. 'It's off a feeling,' he says. 'Me and Illia, or whoever the other eight is, presses with the two sixes. 'We also have pressing triggers. It can also be the winger or the striker who starts the press if they're higher in their half. If they (the opposition) come into our half, we morph into more of a 4-4-2 and I can jump from the eight to the centre-back, and that pushes everyone up.' Does he look before starting the press to ensure his effort is being backed up? 'I do — especially when you're playing teams that have double sixes who are always on the ball,' he says. 'It's tough to really jump in when guys are going off your back shoulder. 'Middlesbrough are very good at this with (fellow USMNT midfielder) Aiden Morris and Hayden Hackney; they're good at knowing I'm going to go and they can just bounce it out. So we have to be more careful. But it's a good trigger for us because when everyone goes, we know we have a good chance of winning the ball.' As with that hard-running effort against Bristol City, does he have to strike the right balance between leading the way physically and preserving energy to get on the ball and then make things happen offensively for Leeds? 'Sometimes I need to control it a bit more. If I am more rested, I can do even more with the ball,' Aaronson says. 'But sometimes you want to help the team and get the crowd going. Advertisement 'That's in games, though. If I have to run in pre-season, I'll always try to find a way to still get the ball out there rather than running.' Aaronson's occasional frustration at his 'runner' reputation often leads to less attention to his creative prowess. Last season, he should have had more than those two assists, when looking at his expected assists figure (5.7). In open play, his 1.7 chances created per 90 minutes was the best in the Leeds squad (among those to play 900+ minutes). 'I'm a perfectionist and after a game, if I haven't created much, I am hard on myself,' Aaronson says. Does he study the numbers that highlight his creative potential? 'I've looked, trust me,' he says. 'People say stats ruin the game and in one way I kind of agree because you can partly judge a player on how many assists or goals, but you also have to look at the pre-assists or what they do throughout the game to influence it.' There is flair to his game, too. We discuss the no-look backheel away to Watford in February, below, which teed up team-mate Daniel James for a shot at goal. James, who played the ball to Aaronson in the first place and ran onto his cute backheel, narrowly missed with the attempt. 'This game was super-open,' Aaronson recalls. 'I had a lot of time between the lines. I'm not going out to just assist and score, it's about the wider game. I knew that behind Joel on the right pocket, I had a ton of space. I've always liked to combine and play one-twos with team-mates. I like the close-quarter play, and it's about expressing yourself and having fun with the game. 'I trust DJ (James) will always be there, with his pace, and if I'm just flicking it or backheeling it, then he gets to it.' Aaronson is aware Leeds might not always be able to attack with such abandon next season when they are back in the Premier League. 'It's a mentality shift,' he says. 'When we go to Anfield (to face champions Liverpool), maybe we have to be smart and organised and wait for our chance to counter-attack.' Advertisement It will be a busy summer for the New Jersey native, who was included on the USMNT training-camp roster ahead of friendlies against Turkey on Saturday and Switzerland three days later, and may also play in the Concacaf Gold Cup when that starts on June 14. A good job, then, that energy isn't a problem and neither, increasingly, is self-belief for a player who had his doubters after he was loaned out by Leeds to Germany's Union Berlin following their 2023 relegation. He made 36 appearances, including 28 starts, for Leeds the last time they were in the English top flight, and insists he will return to the division as a rejuvenated performer. 'It'll be a different challenge because we won't be the best team in the league,' he says. 'The goal is to stay up. 'I'm mentally prepared for it and have grown so much since the last time. My game has gone a level higher and I'm more confident.' The My Game in My Words series is sponsored by the Active Cash Visa® Credit Card from Wells Fargo. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication. (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Tim Vizer / AFP,)
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