For Wrexham to reach the Premier League, they must first survive the hard championship
After Wrexham won his third successive promotion – the very first team in the history of English football organized to do so – their co -owner of billionaire superheroes had a message for enemies.
“I remember the first time I made a press conference there,” said Ryan Reynolds, “and one of the media asked me:” How far do you think this dream? “And I said:” Well, we’re going to take this team to the Premier League “and they laughed and even the players laughed.
From the star of “Deadpool” associated with Rob Mac – formerly Rob Mcelhenney of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” – to buy the club in 2021 and transformed the experience into documentation, they talked about the Premier League.
“We say that all the time, but we want to be in the Premier League, as crazy as it may seem for some people,” Reynolds told ESPN in 2023. “If it is theoretically possible to go from the fifth level of professional football to the Premier League, why will we not do it.
They are not the only ones to talk about it either. Earlier this year, “Morning Edition” of NPR led a segment that not only suggested that Wrexham will one day be the Premier League, but that they will eventually welcome Real Madrid for a Champions League match.
Now I’m guilty too. At the time when they obtained the promotion of the National League at League two, I wrote an article with the following title: “Wrexham by Ryan Reynolds honestly reach the Premier League?” Well, they are A season far from the promotion at the Premier League because they will make their debut in the championship on Saturday against Southampton. But they are also a season of relegation to the one.
Although they were able to master their opponents at the lower league with brute force expenses, the club is now faced with a completely different type of challenge in the second level of England. For the first time since Reynolds and Mac have taken over, Wrexham will be serious outsiders on and off the field.
What’s going on when you are promoted to the championship?
In the past 12 seasons, 36 clubs have been promoted from Ligue 1 to the championship. Here is what happened to everyone after a season:
• remained: 25 (69%)
• Relegated: 10 (28%)
• Promoted: 1 (3%)
If we go from the basic rates, it is nine times more likely that a club promoted to the championship is relegated to Ligue 1 that it is promoted in the Premier League. Except that if you fold your eyes quite strong, you can see similarities between Wrexham and the only team that has leap in one season.
Under the first manager Kieran McKenna, Ipswich Town was promoted in Ligue 1 in 2022-20 the following season, they were then promoted from the championship after finishing second with 96 points and a differential of more-35 goals.
Wrexham, of course, was promoted in Ligue 1 in 2023-24 after finishing second with 88 points and a differential of more-37 goals. And then last season, they again won the promotion with 92 points and a differential of more-33 goals.
Except that Wrexham does not want to draw an Ipswich. They said so much to Joey Lynch d’Espn when they tour in Australia last month.
“I have no doubt that we can arrive at the Premier League at a given time,” said Wrexham CEO Michael Williamson, “but what I want to make sure that we are in the event of the future so that when we get there, we can stay there and that we do not just crash like you have seen other clubs.”
In the Premier League last season, Ipswich won four games, ended the season with a goal differential under 46 and finished 19th.
Why is the championship so different?
Given that the League itself is relatively popular and that a good season is put in the Premier League, the championship clubs both have much more money to spend than the clubs of the Ligue 1 And They spend a higher proportion of their money than any other league in the world.
For the 2023-24 season, according to data from the Swiss hike of Kieron O’Connor, the Premier League clubs have achieved 317.5 million pounds Sterling on average, while the championship clubs collected 39.9 million pounds Sterling and the teams of Ligue 1 reported revenues of 9.4 million pounds sterling. For the same season, the Premier League clubs spent 289.5 million pounds Sterling for transfer costs and salaries, the championship clubs have reached 48 million pounds Sterling and the League 1 clubs spent 9.8 million pounds Sterling.
This means that the Premier League teams spent 95% of what they did and that League One teams mainly wrote all their income (101%) in wages. With a handful of Premier League teams which are not really at risk of relegation, but not in the running for a title, it is logical that not everyone is maximum of their competitive expenses. In Ligue 1, everyone is trying to avoid relegation and ends up being promoted, so a little more money is restored to the costs of the players.
Well, in the championship, the expenses in salary and transfer fees were a huge 121% of income. With a average Increased income of nearly 280 million pounds sterling between the high -level and second level teams, the clubs do not try to make benefits in annual shift in the championship. They do everything you need to be promoted, season after season. And the promotion structure – with two clubs that go up automatically and the next four of the table which are fighting in the playoffs – makes it if more than half of the clubs in the league can be convinced that they are only a season of the Premier League.
In addition to all this, the finances of the championship are much more unequal than they are in Ligue 1. Since the relegated teams of the Premier League obtain a succession of parachute payments in the years that followed their demotion, the teams at the top of the championship can wear lists much more expensive than the clubs that have just made women below.
In 2023-24, the highest income recorded by a championship club were 127.6 million pounds sterling and the lowest was 16.6 million pounds sterling. In Ligue 1, the difference was between 21.3 million pounds sterling and 5.8 million pounds sterling. It is a similar story with wage expenses. In the championship, the summit was 107 million pounds sterling and the hollow was 12.9 million pounds sterling. In Ligue 1, the difference was between 22 and 4 million pounds sterling.
In the championship, the biggest pay is therefore more than eight times more expensive than the smallest salary bill. In Ligue 1, it is an increase of about five and a half years.
So, what does that mean for Wrexham and the Premier League?
It will take a while until we have access to the real Wrexham finances for this coming season, but several studies have revealed that the transfer assessments from the crowd in Transfermarkt serve a very precise proxy for the wage bill of a team. And this, in turn, is an approximate indicator for the level of talent of a team.
So far this summer, Wrexham has signed eight players for totaling costs at around 12.8 million euros. Among them: the former English international Conor Coady, the former premier striker Kieffer Moore, the former goalkeeper Liverpool, Danny Ward, and the former Premier League midfielder Lewis O’Brien.
Since June 1 – when the transfer window has briefly opened for two weeks – the transfer value of the Wrexham team increased by 110.3%, the second highest brand in the league.
The more result than to double the value of their team in just two months? Wrexham currently has the 21st most precious list in a league with 24 teams.
Their team is worth 28.7 million euros. The Championship Average Club has a list of a value of 70.8 million euros. The most precious list, Leicester City, is worth 208.1 million euros, while the other two clubs have just relegated the Premier League, Southampton and Ipswich Town, have lists worth more than 180 million euros.
The reality is that Wrexham’s list is not close to competition seriously for promotion. Of course, it’s football, and strange things happen every season. It is much easier to bounce up to sixth than first, and once you are in the playoffs, anything can happen. But we just haven’t seen this club surpass its opponents and be effective with its expenses. Wrexham was one of the richest teams with one of the most expensive lists of all the other leagues in which they competed.
In fact, the only team we saw in an important financial disadvantage was Birmingham City in the One League last season. Wrexham finished 19 points and 20 goals behind Birmingham last season. They were closer not to be promoted than to take Birmingham and on the basis of Transfermarkt estimates, summer spending from Birmingham increased their value by 40 million euros. Even with this, five other championship teams still have more precious teams than Birmingham and two others have equally precious lists.
There is also no ton of internal improvement in Wrexham. Very few players are likely to improve. The average age of their current list is 27.7 – almost at the end of the peak years of a football player from 24 to 28 years old. They are currently representing the second oldest team in the championship, after the Derby County who finished last season in 19th.
So what could all this mean this season?
Based on the projections of the Twenty First consultation council, its simulations expect Wrexham to score 44.9 goals – the 22nd plus in the league, 9.6 less than the league average – and granted 53.9 goals, good for the 11th more of the league and 0.6 less than the average of the league. This is what Wrexham’s makeup was last season: only Birmingham conceded less goals in Ligue 1, but seven teams scored more.
And for the moment, it’s probably the right balance. It is an old team that is still too complex in a British and Irish players’ swimming pool. To maximize their chances in the future and find a way to score more goals, the team will eventually have to extend its screening for a few islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
As currently formed, Wrexham is much more likely to have a successful season based on defense, rather than risking being too aggressive and ending up with the deadly combination of bad attack and bad defense. The latter could raise their ceiling, but the first will increase their soil.
Eliminating as much drawback as possible is what they should do. According to Twenty First Group, Wrexham has 3.6% chance of being promoted – and 19% of chances of being relegated.
After three successive promotions since Reynolds and Mac took over, success will not be continued upwards. No, a successful season for Wrexham is all that does not send them back.
