Casting Welcome to Wrexham: What players should Ryan Reynolds’ squad look to add ahead of Championship season

A bit predictable really, season four of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny present Wrexham A.F.C. New year, same old conclusion. The Red Dragons are promoted.

Surely that’s not going to hold in the Championship, right? With their high-profile sponsors and big name owners, Wrexham have risen from the fifth tier to the second without ever being anything less than one of the league’s most generous payers. It is unlikely that will be the case next season when they are lining up against some of the grand old clubs of the English game, a few of whom have Premier League parachute payments to fund their promotion bid.

Not only do Wrexham not have the comparative financial muscle they had in lower leagues, they might not have the star power anymore either. Jay Rodriguez and Matty James are great gets for League One, but precisely because they are usually the sort who you see plying their trade in the Championship. Given that their expected goal profile hardly screamed super team of the third tier, there is quality needed. Happily there are two Hollywood stars to make the sales pitch. So, who could be joining the cast for season when season five, the year they play in the Championship rolls around?

Wrexham promoted to Championship: Ryan Reynolds club to England’s second tier after third straight promotion

James Benge

1. The midfield maestro, James Ward-Prowse

Wrexham’s rise from the National League has been built on convincing relatively big name players that the money and profile on offer at the Racecourse Ground is worth taking the reputational hit that comes with dropping down a division. Their League One team is filled with players who could do a job in the Championship, now they need Premier League cast offs. West Ham would surely be delighted to help them out in that regard.

In the top flight, James Ward-Prowse has become defined by what he can’t do: cover enough ground chiefly. In the second tier — pinging passes from deep, stood over dead balls, letting it fly from range — though? There’s superstar vibes there. Imagine the limbs at the Racecourse Ground when JWP bends his first one in from 25 yards out. Imagine the streaming subscribers, rewinding it over and over again.

2. The Welsh great, Ben Davies

This may be a year too soon for one of the great Welsh players of his generation, a mainstay in the great era of football in the country that reached Euros 2016 and 2020 as well as the 2022 World Cup. For the time being Ben Davies, who came through the Swansea City academy, is still a useful squad player at Tottenham, where he had played 23 games in all competitions prior to the trip to Liverpool on April 27. 

It has been reported that Spurs will activate the extension clause in Davies’ contract, keeping him in north London until the summer of 2026. However, the 32-year-old does not really figure in Ange Postecoglou’s strongest XI in any position and would be unlikely to should there be a change of management either. Might he be tempted to return to the homeland and a near guaranteed start on the left of Phil Parkinson’s back three?

3. The wild card, Jamie Vardy

This one is so achingly obvious that it would be a shock if we didn’t see Jamie Vardy lining up in red and white next season. The Skittles vodka downing, opposition trolling tyro with a wife who was at the heart of the trial of the century? Now that’s what I call content.

Even as a footballing investment, Vardy is about as shrewd a pick up as a 38-year-old can be. Seven goals in the Premier League is not to be sniffed at nor — and I know this isn’t the place to go all data nerd — is 0.3 non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes in the top flight this season. That radar might not look ultra enticing, but Wrexham aren’t looking for Premier League talent yet. Get yourself a veteran striker who knows the league and makes for great television.

4. The really wild card, Sergio Ramos

Contracted into 2026 with Monterrey and for a reported $5.7 million, signing one of the great footballing characters of the last two decades would have Reynolds’ accountant spinning. Still, what is all that Deadpool money for exactly if not to bring a World Cup-winning, four time European champion to The Racecourse Ground?

I will love it and I think I deserve it.

5. The talent punt, Dele Alli

Again the script writes itself. The former golden boy of the English game, looking to get back to the player he once was. And what a player that was. For a time in 2016 and 2017 barely a week went by without Dele Alli being linked with Real Madrid in the press. Those stories felt utterly natural too, who wouldn’t want the box crashing midfield superstar who had the world at his feet in a Tottenham side who seemed destined to be perennial trophy winners.

That hasn’t worked out, but if you can get even half of the player Dele was in his prime, that is a real talent to work with. Serie A side Como are gambling on exactly that too, but so far his time by the Italian Lakes has been disrupted by injury and suspension. It might be a hard sell to convince Dele to abandon working under Cesc Fabregas in a city that even the most diehard Wrexham fan might admit has more to offer a young millionaire than Minera Lead Mines and Plassey Retail Village. Can’t hurt to try, though, can it?