Déjà vu for Wrexham after first quarter of the season

A QUARTER of the season has gone and Wrexham’s record is virtually a mirror image of the same stage last season.

Phil Parkinson’s side followed up the 4-1 home win over strugglers Preston North End with a disappointing 2-0 defeat at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday to take their points total to 14 from 12 games.

The Reds, who are six points away from the play-offs and six points above third-from-bottom Burnley in the relegation zone, have picked up three wins and five draws, with four matches ending in defeat.

Go back 12 months and Wrexham, back in the second tier for the first time in 43 years after securing a record-breaking third successive promotion, beat Oxford United 1-0 in their 11th fixture to register a first home win of the 2025-26 campaign before coming home from promotion-favourites, Middlesbrough, with a battling point in a 1-1 draw

That took the Reds to three wins, five draws and four losses as they sat 15th in the standings with 14 points.

A fantastic spell during the festive period saw Wrexham become play-off contenders, only to miss out by two points on the final day of the season.

The play-offs have been extended in 2026-27 and with three-quarters of the campaign to go, there’s plenty of time for the Reds to make their move.

Looking back on all Wrexham’s seasons in the tier two, the best start to the old Second Division was the 1979-80 campaign.

The season before – Wrexham’s first ever in Division Two – saw Arfon Griffiths’ attack-minded side struggle to break teams down.

There were four goal-less draws in the first 12 games of the 1978-79 campaign where Wrexham won four and drew five.

They scored just eight goals and Mickey Thomas fired home four of them so no wonder Manchester United boss Dave Sexton then splashed out £350,000 to take the Welsh international to Old Trafford.

Wrexham were pretty watertight at the back that season and conceded just seven goals, keeping seven clean sheets in the process.

It was only two points for a win in those days but 13 points from a possible 24 wasn’t a bad return for the first year at that level.

Twelve months later, it was even better as Griffiths’ re-shaped side won seven and drew one of their first 12 games.

They scored 15 goals with new signing from Notts County, Micky Vinter netting five of them. They conceded 13 and amassed 15 points.

But the wheels fell off in the next two seasons.

At the start of the 1980-81 season, the Reds lost six and won only three games while in 1981-82 – their final fling in Division Two with Mel Sutton now in the manager’s hot-seat – there were eight defeats and only two wins to kick off with.