Phil Parkinson Tactics At Wrexham AFC 2024/2025: Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney’s Promotion Machine Decoded – Tactical Analysis

The Wrexham fairytale embarks on its newest and most ambitious chapter yet in 2025/2026.

After back-to-back promotions under Phil Parkinson from National League to EFL League Two in 2022/2023 and then League Two to EFL League One in 2023/24, the Red Dragons have made it a three-peat of promotions in 2024/2025.

This means they’ll compete in England’s second-tier, the EFL Championship, in 2025/2026—just one step away from the glamour of the Premier League, which, perhaps, Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenneys Hollywood story is inevitably building towards.

Wrexham entered the 2024/2025 campaign with a good squad for the English third-tier, but promotion was far from guaranteed.

Phil Parkinson style of play within the Wrexham 3-5-2 system ensured they got the best out of the talent in their ranks in order to make this season a successful one.

Our Wrexham tactical analysis goes into detail on Phil Parkinsons Wrexham tactics that got his side out of League One and into the Championship for 2025/2026.

Wrexham Long Ball Tactics

Arthur Okonkwo was Wrexham’s primary goalkeeper in the 2024/2025 campaign.

On top of some very solid numbers in terms of shot-stopping and command of his area when looking at the data, Okonkwo had a noticeable tendency to mainly hit the ball long from goal kicks.

Wrexham hit the most long passes of any League One side in 2024/2025 (57.93 per 90), with the goalkeeper naturally accounting for plenty of those long balls.

Parkinson’s side was not entirely predictable.

From time to time, they would shake things up with a short pass to one of the wide centre-backs, but, by and large, they tended to play it long right from their goal kicks.

Along with Okonkwo’s kick-outs (or centre-backs long passes, should they play the initial goal-kick short), Wrexham were armed with a few strikers capable of acting like target men—Ollie Palmer, Jay Rodriguez and Steven Fletcher.

One of these three would typically play just behind advanced forward Sam Smith, looking to knock the ball onto the faster number nine, aiming to exploit space behind the opposition’s backline.

This image provides an indication of how Wrexham (pink) might look after a kick-out is launched from Okonkwo in goal towards their target man centre-forward, with Smith lurking up top aiming to feed off the target man’s knock-on.

One wing-back would stay wide while the other wing-back would tuck in closer to the target man, helping the team’s chances of winning the second ball.

Similarly, Wre