Ryan Reynolds looked back in May at just how far Wrexham had travelled in five years, marking the club's best league finish in its 162-year history.
We've come a long way in five years. We have so much to be proud of, Reds.
Alongside those words sat an image of the football pyramid, a gentle reminder of the club's climb and, in truth, a plea for patience after Wrexham narrowly missed out on last season's Championship play-offs.
The scale of Wrexham's Hollywood-backed project has never lacked ambition, even if that ambition has occasionally run into the sport's natural limits. It took three separate attempts before the club finally broke free of non-league football. Even so, the upward curve has remained startlingly steep.
A third consecutive promotion took Wrexham into the second tier for the first time in this remarkable run, and after a sluggish opening, they grew into genuine play-off contenders. In the end they fell short by two points and a single place. The side that pipped them to that spot, Hull City, are now a Premier League club.
Simple arithmetic suggests Wrexham are not far away from replicating that leap. Football, though, rarely rewards such tidy logic. Wrexham's net spend last summer was the highest of any of the 24 Championship clubs, and yet the promised land of the Premier League remains stubbornly out of reach.
Enter phase two of the promotion plan, which Reynolds has framed as an exercise in making the kitchen work better rather than knocking the whole house down.
It is not the catchiest title Reynolds has ever put his name to, but as an explanation of Wrexham's recruitment strategy, it carries some weight. Speaking to fans recently about how the squad is being shaped, the co-owner made clear that the heavy lifting had already been done twelve months earlier. It is worth restating that Wrexham's net spend last summer exceeded even Chelsea's, as well as seven other top-flight clubs.
Like a home renovation show... this episode is about making the kitchen work better rather than doing a whole-house renovation.
That earlier spending was far from reckless. Seven of last summer's 13 arrivals are regular full internationals, six of them have played Premier League football, and a significant financial commitment to a new stand at the Racecourse Ground, driven by unprecedented demand for tickets, points to a club thinking well beyond this single season.
Reynolds and co-owner Rob McElhenney, to borrow their own metaphor, have laid strong foundations. The Disney-chronicled Wrexham story continues to command a huge global audience, making the club one of the most commercially valuable in the EFL. The task now is refining what sits inside those solid walls.
Manager Phil Parkinson has assembled a squad built on graft rather than star power so far. Only defender Callum Doyle made last season's EFL team of the year for Wrexham, whereas champions Coventry placed four players in that side, spread neatly through the spine of their team.
Three significant signings have already arrived this summer: goalkeeper Anthony Patterson from Sunderland in a club-record deal, defender Danny Imray from Crystal Palace, and midfielder Ben Whiteman from Preston. According to ESPN, Whiteman's move was actually the club's second major addition of the window, arriving on a three-year contract before Patterson's arrival completed the trio. Patterson's move itself was reported by Yahoo Sports to be worth around £8 million, making it Wrexham's third major piece of summer business and, fittingly, a new club-record fee.
Supporters are now clamouring for a top-tier centre-forward to complete the picture.
A three-match pre-season tour across the Atlantic, taking in Tampa, New York and Philadelphia last month, illustrated exactly why a marquee striker might find Wrexham's peculiar charm hard to resist. The club has become something of an American darling, with more than 40,000 supporters packing Yankee Stadium to watch them face Liverpool.
Back on domestic soil, however, Parkinson was left frustrated after Wrexham suffered a first-round Carabao Cup exit to Middlesbrough, a fixture that took place on 7 August 2026 according to Sports Illustrated, describing it as a case of "missing moments". It has become something of a pre-season pattern, and the calls for a natural, pacey number nine have only grown louder as a result.
Parkinson has tried to reassure supporters that reinforcements are still coming.
We feel we're not where we need to be yet and we know that. We're under no illusions. We've got to make this squad so strong, and we are working tirelessly to bring those extra players in.
How Wrexham's promotion bid ultimately fares may well hinge on the calibre of those late additions. But there is another factor working in their favour this season.
Expanded play-offs and what lies ahead
One of the biggest structural changes for the 2026-27 campaign is the expansion of the Championship play-offs from six teams to eight, a shift covered in our own preview of the new season, which also flagged West Ham, Wolves and Burnley among the favourites for automatic promotion. Had that wider format applied last term, Wrexham would have qualified comfortably. Opta's model currently gives them a 35.8 per cent chance of finishing in the top eight this season, considerably stronger than their 26.2 per cent likelihood of reaching the traditional top six.
Wrexham's season is already under way. Their opening league fixture takes them to Cardiff City on Monday, 17 August 2026, with kick-off at 8pm, according to the fixture list detailed by The Athletic. That same schedule, published in late June, frames the early weeks of the campaign and adds extra significance to the Cardiff trip as a Welsh derby.
Their first home league game follows on Saturday, 22 August 2026, against Watford, as confirmed by ESPN's fixture listings. A week later, on Friday, 28 August 2026, Birmingham City are due at the Racecourse Ground, according to The Athletic's schedule — a club whose own manager, Chris Davies, has spoken about evolving Birmingham's approach beyond pure possession football following a testing first season back in the Championship.
The house that Hollywood built has seen its rapid rise slowed, for now, by the unforgiving unpredictability of the Championship. With the kitchen renovation still ongoing, the question is what Wrexham can cook up from here.
Watch Cardiff vs Wrexham live on Sky Sports Football from 7pm on Monday; kick-off 8pm.
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