Wrexham’s bid for a fourth straight promotion and a place in the Premier League is gaining steam.
A dramatic 3-2 win at Queens Park Rangers — courtesy of two stoppage-time goals — lifted Wrexham, the Welsh club co-owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, into sixth place in the second-tier Championship on Saturday.
The top-two finishers secure automatic promotion and the teams who finish third to sixth will qualify for the end-of-season playoffs for the one extra promotion spot.
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It’s the first time this season that Wrexham have ended a round in the playoff places.
Steve Cook’s late goal appeared to have secured the points for the hosts but after Rangers defender Amadou Mbengue was sent off in stoppage time, the visitors scored twice in the space of a minute.
Josh Windass equalised and fellow substitute Ollie Rathbone netted a dramatic winner in the final moments with a thumping right-footed strike from 30 yards.
“You saw how quickly we got the ball and got back [after the late equaliser],” Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson said.
“We smelt blood. You can feel that as a team sometimes. Their lad got sent off, I don’t know whether that impacted it or not, but you felt that we were the team most likely to go and win it.”
Wrexham have played 29 of their 46 games in their first second-tier campaign since the 1980s following an unprecedented three straight promotions.
Their surge up the English football pyramid, fueled by the cash injection by Reynolds and McElhenney since buying the club in 2020 and documented in the Emmy-winning “Welcome to Wrexham” TV series, began in 2022 with promotion from the non-league fifth tier.
Windass was one of the 13 players who came to the club as part of an estimated spending spree of around 29 million $40 million in the summer transfer window, during which Wrexham repeatedly broke their transfer record.
The winner was Rathbone’s fifth goal in his past 10 appearances. And Parkinson paid tribute to the two substitutes.
“Josh showed incredible technique and what can I say about Ollie — his goals-per-minutes, it’s probably the top in the league,” Parkinson added.
“The big thing for us was that we were leaving players out of the team that may have expected to play. I felt the professionalism of the group got us the win.
“Players are always disgruntled when they’re not in the team, but there was a togetherness about the group and that showed, particularly with Josh and Ollie.
“It was difficult out there. It’s probably the worst pitch in the division. To go away with the three points is a big bonus for us.”
Information from The Associated Press and PA was used in this report.
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