Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson has made unpopular calls – but he is being proved right

New York Times

02-04-2025

Even in a division where more than half of the 24 clubs have changed manager since the start of the season, Cambridge United's own switch in mid-February stood out.
Garry Monk left to be replaced by Neil Harris, who had been head coach last season before leaving for Millwall. But it was a double return with another former Cambridge manager, Mark Bonner, coming back as director of football. The phrase 'unfinished business' got more than a few airings around the pair's unveiling.
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Phil Parkinson's own tenure at Wrexham is towards the other end of the longevity scale. He's coming up for four years in the job, making the 57-year-old the eighth longest-serving manager in the Premier League and EFL.
Things could not be going much better, either, even allowing for his clear frustration at being held to a 2-2 draw by Harris' second-bottom Cambridge on Tuesday.
'We couldn't have done much more to win the game,' said Parkinson, whose side remain three points clear of the chasing pack after Wycombe Wanderers were held to a goalless draw at home to Shrewsbury Town.
'But we didn't and, in the scheme of things, it's two points dropped. We're in a fantastic position but it doesn't stop my anger at the referee. The refs, I feel, sometimes come into these games wanting to make a name for themselves.'
Parkinson was incensed by two big calls that went against his side. First, referee Thomas Parsons awarded Cambridge a penalty after adjudging Lewis Brunt to have fouled Ryan Loft.
Then, as Wrexham pushed for a stoppage-time winner, the officials decreed Elliot Lee's corner had bent out of play before being nudged over the line by Eoghan O'Connell.
Only time will tell if Tuesday proves to be an important staging point in a race for second place that seems set to go all the way to the final weekend. But, Parkinson's Wrexham look well placed to go on and clinch that unprecedented third straight promotion after taking 26 points from their last dozen league outings.
Only runway leaders Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic have bagged more over the same two-month period with 29 apiece (the Londoners having played 13 times).
If Parkinson does go on to make history by taking a team from non-League to the Championship in just three years it will be a personal triumph after having to make some big calls that, at the time, brought plenty of criticism from supporters.
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First there was his handling of Arthur Okonkwo's mid-season dip in form following a two-month absence through injury. This culminated in a night to forget for the 23-year-old in a home defeat to Stevenage, when he was at fault for two of the visitors' three goals and his kicking was all over the place.
Parkinson turned to veteran Mark Howard for the next match at Crawley Town, explaining how he felt Okonkwo needed taking out of the firing line. The move, despite bringing plenty of online criticism, has paid off with the club's first-choice goalkeeper back to his best after being restored to the starting XI following a three-week absence.
Amid the deserved praise being heaped on Okonwko for 15 clean sheets in 27 league appearances, his manager deserves credit, too, for astute handling of the situation.
It's a similar story with other summer arrivals who had to be patient in the early weeks as Parkinson stuck with those who had been on the journey from National League. Even by the autumn, as many as eight of the starting XI most weeks had played for the club in the fifth tier.
Gradually, however, Parkinson started to integrate new faces and only Max Cleworth and O'Connell from those non-League days started at Cambridge.
To achieve such a turnover in personnel and maintain potentially promotion-winning form is no mean feat. Especially when the controversial jettisoning of Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer is factored in, a move that, like Okonkwo's short stint on the bench, initially brought heavy criticism, including from Palmer's father.
Considering how far Wrexham have come, Parkinson gets a surprising amount of stick, particularly online. It's something Humphrey Ker, the man who effectively set Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds on the road towards buying Wrexham, touched on in an interview with The Athletic last month.
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Having revealed his pre-season belief that a top-half finish meant, 'We should build a statue of Phil', the club's community director then added: 'Fans were saying the same to me. But we've gone from that to now, where we've been right up at the top of the table all season and massively outperformed all expectations, and yet I'm reading comments such as, 'Can't believe we scraped past Mansfield'. Or, 'The manager is s***'.'
Style of play is one stick used to beat Parkinson, with some critics considering it to be an overly direct 'route one' approach and saying too many victories are ground out.
Leaving aside how most of football's 'great entertainers' — hello Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United in the 1990s — usually win more friends than trophies, Wrexham's style has evolved during the move up the leagues.
This might not necessarily be reflected in the percentage of passes hit long, according to Opta — 21 per cent this season, compared to 19 per cent in League Two. But surely most recognise the neat link-up play between midfield trio Matty James, Ollie Rathbone and George Dobson as being light years away from the missile-like long throws Ben Tozer used to hurl towards Aaron Hayden in the National League.
Parkinson, of course, has benefited from financial resources most of his peers could only dream about. But that spending power is also accompanied by a target on the back, particularly on the road with Cambridge just the latest to raise their game on Tuesday.
To navigate that and the intense spotlight that comes with being the club with Hollywood owners is testament to the manager's tried and trusted methods.