Has Wrexham’s Hollywood dream reached the glass ceiling of reality?

· Football365

A 6-0 thumping at West Ham comes as part of a difficult second season in the Championship. Wrexham’s Hollywood story has met the glass ceiling of reality.

A 6-0 defeat at West Ham was a painful reminder of Wrexham’s place in the pecking order.

If you were to write a TV show designed to get Americans into ‘soccer’, it would not be too dissimilar to the story of Wrexham.

The forgotten club on the edge of nowhere, the underdog attempting to take on the big boys; Philadelphia-born co-owner Rob McElhenney compared the story to the city’s most famous son, Rocky.

The club defeated Apollo Creed in the form of promotion from the National League. Clubber Lang was a vanquished League Two and League One promotion was Ivan Drago.

But, much like the fifth instalment of Rocky was universally panned for well, not having any kind of plot, Wrexham themselves find the next stage of their story is missing a satisfactory ending.

The fairy-tale narrative of the Welsh club is that they put together a run of three consecutive promotions, becoming the first club to do so in English league history. A cynical/more realistic version of events is that Wrexham’s budget far outweighed the majority of their rivals.

The dream scenario would have been the final hurdle, reaching the Premier League, the only league that the majority of Americans had even heard of. But football cares little for how you would like your fairy-tale to end.

The Championship was always going to be the true test of Wrexham. If McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds could spend their way to success in the lower leagues, here they were coming up against clubs with far deeper pockets, far more pedigree in the league and far more experience in how to achieve promotions. Ten Championship owners have an estimated net worth of over $1bn; McElhenney and Reynolds’ is close to $500m.

But still, while not their fourth consecutive promotion, their first season back in the second division was a surprising success. They finished seventh, which would have been enough for the play-offs under the new model. They also finished ahead of fellow promoted side Birmingham, who were far more fancied going into the season.

But the difficult second season has arrived. On Friday night, the absence of Premier League football meant a bumper audience witnessed Wrexham’s 6-0 demolition at the hands of West Ham, a game that provided a reality check for where the club lies in the pecking order.

In front of the biggest crowd Wrexham had reportedly ever played in front of, West Ham picked off a disorganised and out-of-their-depth team.

If Jarrod Bowen, a player who clearly deserves to be in the Premier League, scored three of them, you could maybe write it off as moments of brilliance from a superior player, but all six of West Ham’s goals came from different players.

Wrexham conceded from set-pieces, they conceded from crosses, they conceded from quick passes in the box, they conceded on the counter, they conceded from a long ball over the top.

A lot of teams will be beaten by West Ham this year but the nature of that defeat suggests that Southampton, who Wrexham play next, will have similar joy. Middlesbrough too.

So far this season, Wrexham have one win from their seven matches and are 19th in the table. If the goal is to reach the Premier League, it is hard to argue – with all the available evidence – that Wrexham are among the eight best teams in the league.

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