Wrexham’s MASTERPLAN to STAY in the Championship…

Wrexham CEO Michael Williamson explains the big challenge of competing in the Championship – on and off the pitch. From squad size to stadium issues, here’s what the club must get right to stay up.

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before we talk Premier League and get ahead of ourselves, okay, it’s backto backto back promotions. Um, championship now. I think even probably for the owners back to back to back would have been stretching it just a little bit, but it’s happened. We are where we are. It’s an absolute incredible achievement. Championship next season. It’s a big league. It’s a strong league. It’s a very physical league. Um, and there’s a lot of money washing around in the Championship. You look at some of the teams that have been relegated. Southampton for for example, you’re talking about playing against players that are probably going to be worth 20 25 million pound players. Southampton, for example, have probably got what, three or four of them? Four or five of them. More and there’s probably a few other champions. How do Rexom compete in the championship next year? When we arrived at League One, I said to Rob and Ryan, I said, “This is a really [ __ ] difficult league.” I knew the guys at Huttersfield. Um, you know, I knew the former manager at Barnesley and I knew how difficult it was and the risk of getting stuck in League One, honestly, because it is a difficult league to get out of. But I told Rob Ryan, I said, “Listen, we have momentum, we have the confidence, and we have some continuity. So, we could just get stuck here or we could go for it.” And in fact, you saw in in season 4 that that um one of the first episodes, early episodes that talked about this, you know, meeting where I presented to them what what the strategy was and what the cost was going to be and they said, “Let’s go all in.” Um I believe it was another podcast, the Fearless and Devotion guys. I said, “Oh, well, obviously that that’s a you know, that that meeting never actually happened. You know, a couple months before they would never be deciding on a strategy about what to do. They would have planned that years in advance.” Well, that meeting happened. That was a real meeting. Um and and I remember what um Rob said after it a lot of silence actually when I shared some of the numbers and graphs and and Rob and Ryan was on on the phone on a video call and and he was in a hotel room at the time and and and there’s silence and kind of uneasiness and I’m like I’m like oh I’m a few months into my job here. I’m like oh [ __ ] I better get my CV refreshed very quickly again and maybe overstep that one. But they um then Rob said, “You know, listen, I believe in people and I believe in Phil and the team that we have here and the people around him and obviously, you know, Michael, we we believe in you as well. You that’s why we brought you in.” So, you know, I don’t want to speak for Ryan, but I think, you know, we should go for it. And, you know, Ryan responded, “Let’s [ __ ] go.” And that that meeting was real. It was raw. was organic. It happened and and that’s you know you know the kind of the American mentality that they bring and Canadian American mentality that they bring. It’s like why not? Let’s go for it. That positive energy that optimism green lights for you is that kind of like oh thank god for that. Well no to some extent yes because I was thinking that you know okay fine I I convinced them to invest in what I think you know what we should be doing and in the strategy we should be doing. Then the other part of me is is, you know, I’d been in Rexom for a little bit and I saw kind of what the infrastructure was around and some of the challenges that we had and I knew that if we were going to arrive in the championship, we had a lot to do very quickly. We needed to sprint. We didn’t have time for a marathon. We needed to sprint as quickly as possible so that when we arrived at the championship, we would be prepared for it. And that meant doing a lot of things all at the same time. You know, obviously from the cop, starting the academy, um you know, working on some of the the improvements uh out at Kier’s Park, just a lot of things that we had to do very quickly. Um building staff. I mean, we we needed to hire people, you know, it’s and bringing in um nutritionists and bringing in uh chefs for for the first team. like these are things that we needed to do and prepare in League One so that we we when we arrived at the championship we were we were prepared for it as much as possible. So fast forward obviously the back to back to back and to answer your question you know I think that we again momentum confidence and continuity um and with an incredible manager that you know very well and what he’s able and capable of doing in the dressing room uh with Phil you anything can happen um and and it is a yes it’s a very challenging league you have three clubs that have been relegated down that are sitting on parachute payments Okay. But this is a bit of a unique year because two of the clubs that went up um you um Burnley and Leeds, you know, are up and they went up and got promoted into to the Premier League and Luton went down. So instead of having four or five clubs in the championship on parachute payments, you only actually have three clubs in parachute payments right now. And that’s interesting. That’s very unique. Um not very unique, but it it is it is an opportunity, right? and and and I think for us, you know, anything can happen if we can get in that kind of playoff position or close to it towards um the second half of of the season. I I have confidence in our guys. You you you mentioned the word momentum. You we we were at the stadium last night and we um we did a few little talks, didn’t we? We we went around a few kind of boxes and spoke to a few of the fans and you said it last night as well. You said the word momentum and you said when you’ve got momentum, special things can happen. Is that something experience has told you that? Yeah. I mean, listen, you can see it when when things magical things can happen when you have people have confidence and and that confidence is is being, you know, built upon each other once one after another and you tend to have success upon success, right? The risk is once that momentum starts to slow down or if it stops, it’s really difficult to get it going back in the direction you want to go. it’s much easier for it to start going backwards. Um, and and that’s kind of the challenge of momentum and that’s that’s the double-edged sword of it. But I believe that we have um the momentum in place along with the infrastructure and foundation to to be able to to give ourselves a really good chance of having some magic happen. Now, do I think we’re going to get promoted? Listen, again, anything can happen, but I’m also realistic. I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to to make a run for it. if not this season, the season after that. If not the season after that, the season after that. Like that’s what I’m trying to do is build that. So we have the biggest challenge we’re going to have is the fact that we’re only able to have a 25man squad over 21, right? And for those that don’t know, in League One, it’s still it’s also a 25man squad list, but goalkeepers are excluded. In the championship, goalkeepers are included. So you essentially lose three field players. And that’s why you see clubs like Southampton who are so successful because they have such an established an academy program that they have a pipeline of U21 players that can come in. It’s not a big drop off. So that gap between a U21 player and that first team player is not that big. and so that they have extra depth in this long season with a lot of matches where they can plug in some players if there’s an injury, whatever it might be that comes from that U21 squad. You know, we’re we’re still building. We’re in the infasy stages of our academy program. That’s going to be one of our challenges um you know, as we as we go forward in the championship. But again, I I think, you know, we have uh we have a lot of experience. We’re trying to balance that um with some youth, of course, and and have the right balance on the squad. Uh, and then what you know what Phil can do in a dressing room is just, you know, that that’s where some of the magic can happen. Thanks everybody for watching. We hope you enjoyed this clip of the Foscast. If you would like to watch the full episode, it is now available exclusively on Spotify for free. [Music]