This Week in Wrexham 11/20/25: Phil Parkinson

0:00You're listening to the Men in Blazers media network, Suboptimal radio. You are so close to the Premier League. Do you let yourself think about that? Phil Parkinson, Premier League manager. You've got to. There's no point in being in the game if you don't dream and believe that you can keep achieving as a club. We've aimed high. We've tried to build the squad the best we can. We've got to keep believing that anything is achievable in football.

0:29My guest today is a singular gent who's accomplished something no other manager in the British football pyramid has done, achieving an unprecedented three straight promotions, levitating Wrexham from the National League all the way to the Championship, going back to back to back in a way that makes me hope Rob and Ryan don't have to pay him by the hyphen. It's a joy to raise my stoke, and welcome back the poet laureate of the well-placed F-bomb, the Lancashire special one. It's Mr Phil Parkinson. Hi, Rog. How are you? I'm happy to see you, Phil. in this championship season where Wrexham are currently 13th in the table and being in their last five league games with just one loss in their last 10.

1:14You once told me it takes about 10 games for the table and the results to sort themselves out. We're 15 games in. How are you feeling right now? Yeah, I think we've definitely progressed as the season's gone on. We've got used to the division. obviously a lot of players came in the building some late into the start of the season so it's getting to know them as individuals obviously you don't really know the players until you start working with them so that's been an enjoyable challenge a lot of players have moved into the areas and they've had good support from the people in the club to get them settled in as quickly as possible yeah, we've enjoyed it we really have we've been in all the games We've been relatively pleased.

2:04You know, there's work to be done. We know that. But I feel we've adapted well and we're going to go from strength to strength. Before we get too far into it, we do have to give a huge thanks to Stoke Cold Brew Coffee for powering this entire series. Stoke, it's a must-have in my fridge, especially the espresso blend. Stoke, also proud supporters of Wrexham AFC, the club that's been dominating the football world while capturing our hearts. Explore Stokes' full lineup of 48-ounce cold brew flavors, from light rose to seasonal favorites in a refrigerated multi-serve format. Something for everybody.

2:39Don't forget to follow mighty, mighty Wrexham. And once again, huge love to Stoke. But back to you, Phil, because it's somehow been an entire year since you last made the enormous mistake of speaking to me. And I want to touch back on what's happened since then. When you led Wrexham into the championship, that third straight promotion, I think you ended on a 10-match unbeaten run for your third straight upwards tick. Does each one feel special in its own singular way, or do they all blur into one? Yeah, I think I was actually watching some footage of the Boreham Wood game yesterday, actually. It was at a function, and they had that on the screen.

3:20The memories of the National League promotion will certainly live with us. last year I think the day we got over the line against Charm was we'll definitely live with this for a long time because if you remember Rog the game Maureen beating Wickham at lunchtime and us having an evening kick off and the atmosphere when we got into the race Scott Carreau staging was just incredible you could just feel it everywhere we needed that result to go our way and then it was down to business for ourselves and with the way the support was on that day. You fancied us, Charlton, we're going to have to be very good to stop us.

4:01And yeah, just things were aligned on the day and it was an amazing experience. How did you celebrate? Because I know that you are a man who once celebrated staying at Wobolton by cleaning your garden furniture. I know you get yourself truly out of control, Phil. We had an impromptu party, if you like, in the Centenary Club at the ground. and that was great because obviously you can't plan anything and as we spoke about before, Roger, in other games where you don't know what the outcome is, you may still have to go to the final week of the season and when we played Charlton this time, I had a good chat with Nathan Jones about that whole scenario, Nathan being the chart manager, that obviously if they'd beat us on the day, their last game was against Burton at home, were already relegated and we were going to Lincoln away.

4:54So they came up really fancying the chances of, bearing in mind they'd just come on the back of beating Wickham away over the Easter period. So they really fancied the chances of getting the job done themselves. So you can never over plan. You don't want the opposition to start hearing about your plans for promotion parties and you really don't. You don't want to give the opposition manager any more motivation than he already needs. So yeah, to answer your question, we all got together. We had a few drinks and yeah, the lads went out again on a Sunday. And, you know, I had a great family day, went to a restaurant and celebrated with my family.

5:33How long do you allow yourself to enjoy that winning feeling before you start preparation for what is Wrexham's first season in the championship since 1982? And obviously, you know, the advantage of going straight up is you don't have the playoffs and the playoffs can be fantastic. They're exciting, but they can impact on the time in terms of the recruitment. So obviously we had the Lincoln game the last day of the season. Then all the club very kindly paid for all the staff to go away. Obviously, as you know, the lads went to Vegas and the staff, we all went to Dubai and played golf out there.

6:09We had an amazing time. And then at the end of that trip, it was time for the staff to sit down and say, right, what the plans are, where do we think we need to strengthen and work out a kind of a strategy or blueprint for how we wanted the squad to look by the end of the transfer window. And that's what we did at the end of that trip. We then had another meeting as a staff away from Regson. We just met in a hotel close to where we all live and just had another chat and then communicate with Sean and Mike and the owners about how we feel we need the squad to look. Let's talk about that because you made a lot of changes over the summer.

6:52I think you brought in, was it, 13 new players? Welsh powerhouse Kiefer Moore, former Sheffield Wednesday wrecking ball Josh Windass, another former tractor boy Nathan Broadhead. When you're signing these players who have Premier League experience or a lot of championship experience, does your approach change in terms of how you manage or coach them in a different way to players who haven't lived the game at those levels? I think it was really important we got players in the championship standard, obviously, because those players who are used to playing at the level would help our players who are coming up another level, like your Max Kluwer, obviously he's a great example, to help him adapt into the next step.

7:37So yeah, was there a different strategy in the crew? Obviously, you're looking at different level of transfer fees and wages. We had to aim as high as we could within our budget to get the best quality players we felt we needed to make the jump. And like you rightly say, Roger, we made a lot of changes. But I think in a normal scenario where, you know, you may have come up to League One and had two or three seasons to then evolve that squad, you probably then would look in at five or six changes as you go up a division. But the progression has been that quick. You know, we felt we had to kind of revamp the squad and some tough decisions had to be made along the way, obviously.

8:17but you know we went to Australia for New Zealand and had that trip and it gave us a good chance to spend a lot of time together with Mike and Sean and all the staff looking at all the players and the recruitment was ongoing even though we were on the other side of the world

8:37You've hit a number of issues which are really fascinating first up you mentioned Max Kluwerth 23 year old defender the only player on the active roster who's actually left from your first season at the club. Has your definition of what a Wrexham player is, what that player should look like and think like and play like changed in the past four years? Good question. I think that the challenge this year is, I think we've got a certain identity as a team. Which is what? Not kind of a system of play, just a kind of the hunger and effort and desire and the work togetherness of the group has taken us a long way.

9:17So the challenge has been bringing so many players in and getting them to understand what playing for Exum means, what this journey has been all about. And as I've explained before, Rog, the key has been for us that while we've had all the kind of exposure, the documentary, incredible kind of profile this club's got to keep the players grounding and understanding that we've come a long way by getting the dressing room right, by the work ethic, by the training standards. And so there's a certain kind of principles we've had in place, which we've carried with us. Now, when you obviously meet players, bring them in, I explain what we feel the club's all about, why we've been successful and what we want to continue to do.

10:01Someone said to me, at the end of this season, what do I want to achieve? And I said, well, I want the team to have reflected and represented what we've been all about since the very start in the way we play. And I feel we're gradually getting there with this group and moulding the team together and getting the demands on the players in each and every week to perform how we've done in all the divisions we've come up from. I am curious how you bed in over a dozen new players all at the same time because it is such a complicated balancing act to have a culture And the culture has been, I think, one of your greatest assets I've taken from our past conversations.

10:42But you've had to completely change the human beings within that culture. How do you quickly build the relationships and maintain that culture? Or does the culture itself change? How do you do it? What's the secret? That culture is important. It's just the training standards and, you know, showing players what we want and what we expect from them as individuals. And obviously the collective being the most important part of it. And I think that the challenge we had at the start was when you're signing players, obviously everybody would want the squad together by the start of the preseason tour.

11:15But it never works like that because teams don't really want to sell players. Like Josh Windlass, for instance, was in a contract wrangle at Sheffield Wednesday. Kiefer Moore, Sheffield United didn't really want to sell. Players come to you and there are different stages of the preseason. Libby Kakachi, for instance, hadn't been training with Ampli. He'd been training on his own. and Lewis O 'Brien had been training with the under-23s at Forest. So they all come in at different levels. And we came back from Australia and then we started bringing the players in and we picked up a few injuries in that period, which was kind of even though we tried to be detailed and manage each player obviously individually in terms of the training load, we still, while those players were adapting to our training, we picked up some niggly injuries.

12:00And getting over that hurdle has been quite a challenge for us. And we're still there to an extent of managing the players. You know, Libby, I think, is a good example. You know, the demands of the English Championship are tough and he's picked up a few injuries and that's cycling. You know, we can't get him out of that at the moment. So I think that's been an interesting challenge for the sports science and medical team and us as a coaching staff, gearing the training round on a very much individual basis. and in terms of the culture it's just kind of forming those leaders watching those characters emerge in the dress room Dom Hyam now who we brought in on the last day of the window as being our captain we always knew that he had that you know had worn the armband before Ben Sheaf's worn the armband before but I like to get to know players before we make them captain and give them the armband and so Dom's emerged as a character in the group and in any dress room you just wait for people to emerge as leaders within that group.

13:04It's interesting because you've had such strong personalities, such strong faces of this team. But one of the downsides of Wrexham's climb up this football pyramid is you've had to say goodbye to some of the players, not just players, but real heroes who have connected so deeply to the fan base, the community, the wider Wrexham world fan base who've been essential parts of this hero's journey. Players who were, these were not waypoints on a map. These were all, honestly, when I think about it, they were the compass itself. Scottish samurai Stephen Fletcher, who's since announced his retirement, occasionally shirted striker Oli Palmer, moved to Swindon Town.

13:46And Super Paul Mullin, 110 goals in 172 games. Really an emotional symbol of the rise of this club. Him, post-game, communing with the fans. how do you handle those decisions you're a very experienced man does it just come down to football and like don't hate the player hate the game is that how it is or do you too feel do you feel the emotional side of those moments too definitely I think it's the toughest part of my job and it's been you know I've had more of those conversations since I've been at Rexton than any other club just because of the speed we've progressed through the divisions yeah I think every case is an individual one Rog, you know, Fletch initially we were thinking because obviously Fletch's character and the impact he had from the bench we'd like to keep him and then obviously the numbers game in terms of the 25 month squad which including the keepers, we just thought realistically we've got to try and find a younger striker and I think with Fletch I think he was initially disappointed but from when he left Dundee United a couple of years ago to have the two years on the back of his career, which have been incredible for him as well.

15:00I think he's sitting back. He's really appreciated his time here and we've appreciated what he's done. Oli, Oli Palmer, you know, listen, these lads are what they've done. They've created a legacy at the football club and, you know, the time was right for Oli to go and play. And it's been well documented. Oli's family lived down south as well. And I think there's a timescale to be commuting away from a young family as well. And I said, the time is right for you, Oli. But he'll keep his connection with the club going forward after what he's done, which is great from my point of view because, Roger, I always go back to when we signed Oli and Paul Mullen, who I'll come to in a minute, that, you know, I had to sell the dream to Oli.

15:43This was before the documentary had been aired. It was all people said, this is what could happen. You know, you could become a hero at this club. You know, this could transcend to a kind of different level. And it did, and he played his part. So when those kind of chats come true, at the end, you end up with a great connection with those players, even though there's a point where you have to say, look, Oli, time for you here is up playing because I need to progress the team. And Moles, obviously different because he's still got another year, 18 months left in his contract. But we had a chat right at the end of the season and I said, look, Moles, you can do what you want.

16:20If you want to go and play somewhere, we'll respect that. if you want to come back and have a really good pre-season with us, we'd also respect that. Wigan came in for him really early in the summer and we had a chat and he said, I'd like to go there right from the start of pre-season. And yeah, so every case is different really, Rog. Some are more difficult conversations than others, but all you can do is speak, treat people as respectfully as possible. You're now in the championship. It's a place you know well. You've experienced it as a player with Reading. You've experienced it as a manager with Bolton, Charlton, Hull City.

16:58It's a battle of the bastards. It's well documented. I think Pep Guardiola has said it's the hardest league in the world to win. Can you put into words, from your experience, what makes this, in simple language, such a gruelling singular challenge, especially for managers? Well, I think, first of all, if we talk about the gruelling kind of nature nature of the division. So in the Premship, you play 38 games. In the Championship, you play 46. But obviously, you have the same international breaks as the Premship. So you've got to fit in another eight midweek games along the way. So as much as we just now come back off our international break, prior to that, we played seven games in 22 days.

17:43So there is a lot of midweek games, and the demands of the division physically are very, very high. They're significantly higher than League One. So that's the first part in terms of the physical demands. I mean, the reason it's so tough for managers is because the division is so tight, anyone can beat anybody. You could either win five and lose five. The manager's positions are constantly being scrutinised in division because the games are just separated on just moments all the time. And you can have a run where you fall the wrong side of those moments, but be playing well, you know, goalkeeping's sake or striker missing a chance.

18:21But equally, you can have moments where they go for you as well, like the penalty decision we got against Charlton, which went in our favour. So it's just so tight. Games can go either way. And, you know, there is an edginess about the games because of that. Your first job as manager was in 2003 at Colchester, the Mighty Hughes. They were in the third tier of English football. You ultimately pulled them from the relegation zone into a 12-place finish. But you said afterwards that when you arrived, the team expectations were, quote, simply to stay up on the last day of the season. That was judged to be a success.

19:00You're now at Wrexham in the championship after this unique journey for any football club. Just a complete and utter meteor of a trajectory, culture changing, players changing. You know how hard the championship was. What was your goal? What was success for you? And what was your message at the beginning of this season? Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth referencing that Colchester story because, you know, I remember, you know, that third tier is now obviously the first division, which it was called then. And there was very low expectation levels of Colchester, like you say, to stay in the division.

19:35But I had to change that. And I can remember having meetings with a group of players that if we lost a game, I'd say, look, Queen's Park Rangers are in the Division One at the time, wouldn't have lost that game because the expectancy on them as a group wouldn't have allowed them to perform like that. And we've got to change that, oh, we're little old Colchester, it's okay to win on a Saturday and then not turn up on a Tuesday night and get beat. We've got to build those expectations from ourselves within the group. So we changed that round there and ultimately got promotion. here I think we've lived with that expectation to be right at the top and to win every week ever since I've been here Rog, there's no doubt about that and the spotlight has always been on us and how do we deal with that?

20:24We just deal with it by blocking everything out and concentrating on working hard each day physically and tactically and mentally with the players to put in the best performance, which is always the process of the performance is the key. And the minute that you start thinking about, oh, we've got to win today, there's a big expectation on Wrexham, whichever division we've been in, then that creates anxiety and tension. And I think the only really time at home I've sensed that was this season where we hadn't got that home win early in the season. And when you analyse those games, we actually played reasonably well in them all, but we chased the game.

21:06We kind of played in an anxious way in almost a desperation to go and get that win. And we had to sit the lads down and say, look, we're about the process of the performance. There's been lots of high profile games here, one nil down to Notts County at home. So what did you say? I said, let's concentrate on what we've set out to do. We know how we need to play today to win and let's concentrate on that. The result will take care of itself. So I think we had to flip back into that mode, Rog, in the Oxford game, getting that first home win was key to that. And that was a terrific performance where I felt we went back to a nice calmness in our play in terms of a method of how we were going to win the game, but also an intensity about the way we closed down and the physicality in our play.

21:55And going back to what you said to me earlier about, what does it mean playing for Exxon? Certainly when you come to the Stoke RS Stadium, You know, we have always made it difficult for the opposition with the intensity and the physicality of our play. And I feel in recent weeks, the commentary game being a great example of that. We've really, you know, switched back into that and got rid of the little bit of tension, anxiety and the lads are relishing playing at home again. I'm interested in two parts of this, Phil. I mean, as you mentioned, the reintroduction to the championship was slower than you would have liked it.

22:30I think you have back-to-back losses to begin with, Southampton and West Brom. You turn that 2-0 lead into a draw against Sheffield Wednesday. Your first win away, Millwall. It's a tough beginning. You've said that you look at the games differently than just the outcomes. You're looking at the process. You focus on positives that aren't reflected in the score or at the time in the table. What metric are you looking at, Phil, that you're like, no, you know what? we didn't win, but this is good, this. What's the metric? If you go back to those early games, you know, particularly the West Brom game and the ones which didn't go so well at home, you know, what we looked at there, that obviously we were conceding too many chances at home and the balance of the team in terms of the shape of the team wasn't quite right.

23:21And we weren't defending well enough in key moments in those games. And in any game of football, Roger, they're going to have periods where the opposition have a spell and you've got to come through that spell with resilience, fight and tenacity to come through it unscathed. And then you have your spell in the game. And then obviously it's about taking your chances. And we looked at those periods in the game and analysed the key moments and sat down with the lads and went through those moments with them and said, look, you know, say we've ever been unlucky or things haven't gone quiet for us, but we could do better.

23:55You know, there's moments in these games where that's not what we're all about. You know, it's about making that block when it matters the most. Bodies on the line when it really matters most in and around the box. And I feel we've got that so much better recently. I think Portsmouth away, Rog, was a brilliant example of that. You know, and that's a bit of we've always been, you know, a tough team to play against. You know, we've had defenders, you know, we've put the bodies on the line to make last ditch challenges and blocks, as well as the great attacking play. And we felt we weren't quite doing that as well as we could.

24:31Of course, you know, those key chances in those moments, you know, even at St. Amson at 1-0 up, we had two or three great moments to go and kill the game off. The metric we looked at in that period is one, that we had to be harder to play through. But in key moments around our opposition box, you know, we needed to do better. Do you feel an extra level of pressure now? Or do you feel like you've got the back to back to back to back to however many promotions and you feel like you've earned the respite from the pressure? Being in this championship, do you feel like an extra level, an extra dimension, a new sense of anxiety?

25:11Or does it all feel the same? I think the scrutiny at this level is obviously higher because of the profile of the division. Nearly every game seems to be on TV. So you do feel everything gets scrutinised more just because it is one of the most watched divisions in European football, world football even. So, yeah. Do I feel any more anxious? I don't know. I just think going back to the National League season when we got promoted, that was a pressured season a lot more than this because if we're honest, Rog, we had to get out of the division that year. We had to. For so many reasons, the story kind of does the documentary keep rolling for another season in the National League?

26:03Probably not. So I think the emotion of that was greater than what we're experiencing, that I'm experiencing at the moment. The kind of anxiety and kind of tension has just been around formulating the group together and knowing that that takes time and dealing with the injuries we've had so far this season. But I'm confident, you know, we're kind of coming through that period and I've enjoyed getting to know the new players. and that brings a freshness for the staff as well when you change the group round as much as we did. It's incredible to talk to you at this moment, this five-match unbeaten run.

26:43The 1-1 draw away at Borough. I was there. It was epic. The 3-2 win against League Leaders Coventry, their first and only loss on the season so far. Is this the real Wrexham, Phil? And how do you know for sure? I hope so. I hope we're getting to know the lads better. we've got a clear understanding of how we've got to play we've adapted the shape from game to game according to the opposition which is something we haven't had to do a lot over the period of time I've been at the club yeah and I feel we're getting there but we've still got work to do obviously we're not the finished article because the finishing article would be top of the league we've got work to do but it's an exciting kind of challenge for us all.

27:32I think the supporters are loving the division. They really are. It's incredible. It's incredible. About the Middlesbrough game, you know, you feel, you know, from where we've come from that we're on the big stage. We're on the big stage, you know, every game and you're at 30 ,000 plus stage. And, you know, we went down to East Angola to play Norwich, a team which is flared between the Premiership and the Championship over the last seven or eight years. And I said in the press that last time we were down in that part of the country, we were playing Kings Lynn. You know, when you kind of look at that, you do have to step back sometimes.