Wrexham A.F.C. have two important games to build fitness levels before the start of the Championship campaign. The Reds open the season with a Welsh derby against newly-promoted Cardiff City at The Cardiff City Stadium on Monday August 17. But before then, Wrexham get underway with a League Cup first round tie away to second-tier rivals Middlesbrough this Friday and manager Phil Parkinson has revealed his players will also be involved in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Wigan Athletic next week.
The players have returned from a pre-season tour of America and Parkinson has already indicated he will treat the cup tie at The Riverside Stadium as an additional pre-season fixture, with the Reds' boss set to experiment with his line-up. And after adding the practice match with Wigan to the schedule, he wants to make sure everyone if raring to go for the league curtain raiser with Cardiff.
"We go back now, Middlesbrough on Friday and then we play Wigan on Monday," he told the club. "The Friday game is the Carabao Cup but the Wigan game has got a lot of importance as well because we need to make sure as we go into the week of the Cardiff game, we've got another real block of minutes in the lads' legs.
“Friday’s match is a cup match and we’ll be going all out to win it. "It’s a game where we’ve got to give as many players minutes as we can and have everyone near 90 minutes by the following week’s Monday match.”
Wrexham competed the three-game trip to the States, all against Premier League opponents, with a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland in Philadelphia on Sunday. It's all about recovery now as far as Parkinson is concerned for all his touring party ahead of the cup tie away to Boro.
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It's important now that we give the lads plenty of rest this week and we get the jetlag out of our legs. All of us as staff as well," he added. "I would like to mention the staff also because on these tours, there's a lot of work goes on behind the scenes from the kitman, the medical team and the sports science department, and they've worked incredibly hard.
League standing (final 2025 table -- new season not yet under way): 7th in Championship, 71 pts, 19W-14D-13L from 46 games, recent form DLWWL. Goals this season: 69 scored, 65 conceded (+4 goal difference). Title race: 24 points behind leaders Coventry.
