Despite being only three points behind leaders Stockport in League Two, the Red Dragons’ recent performances have angered some supporters.
The club’s fifteen years in the non-league wilderness were put to an end last season by the former manager of Bradford and Sunderland, who broke the record with 111 points to win the National League.
There is currently discontent among a sizable portion of the fan base, despite the fact that the Red Dragons are only three points behind leaders Stockport in the League Two standings, sitting in fourth place.
It comes after a run in which Wrexham has only triumphed in two of their previous nine league games, raising serious concerns about their deteriorating road performance.
Even though star striker Paul Mullin saved Parkinson’s bacon with a late penalty to earn a point against a struggling Forest Green Rovers on Tuesday night, it was insufficient to mask yet another subpar away effort.
Inquiring about the future of a manager who has above 60% win rate in his 2.5 years at Wrexham may seem harsh.
There are concerns about what would happen if he doesn’t receive back-to-back promotions this season, though, given that the club’s aspirational owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, want to play in the Premier League.
Parkinson accused of being too rigid with tactics
Parkinson is frequently accused of having overly inflexible tactics since, even in situations where his team is losing, he is hesitant to stray from his preferred 3-5-2 shape.
During his disastrous tenure at Sunderland, he was also criticised for sticking with an ineffective system.
Parkinson did make a change in the draw at Forest Green, going to four at the back with a diamond formation in midfield, but he did so soon after the hour.
Only three minutes had passed when Emmanuel Osadebe, following some careless play in midfield, broke free and finished clinically, putting the Red Dragons down.
Even though Wrexham had almost 75% of the possession in Gloucestershire, they were unable to convert it into obvious opportunities and hardly ever put Rovers’ loanee goalie Vicente Reyes to the test.
Comparably, the manager has received a lot of flak for taking too long to make substitutes.
Fans are often frustrated by Parkinson’s reluctance to make adjustments until the end of the game, especially when their team is trailing behind.
In order to accommodate a formation change on Tuesday, he made his first substitution in the 60th minute, inserting Jordan Davies in place of Aaron Hayden.
Soon after, Eoghan O’Connell exited the pitch due to a calf injury, resulting in an unforced substitute that added to the already crowded Wrexham treatment room.
In the 73rd minute, Parkinson threw in his last card as Ollie Palmer and new January additions Luke Bolton and Jack Marriott got involved.
In actuality, though, his team didn’t appear likely to score until Rovers’ Jamie Robson had an insane moment during injury time, when the defender lunged at Mullin inside the penalty area.
Despite his recent goal drought, the striker comfortably scored the ensuing spot kick to salvage a draw that was hardly worth it.
Well-backed manager needs to get a tune out of his stars
Though he has a squad with more depth than most League Two managers could ever hope for, there’s a sense that Parkinson is finding it difficult to extract the best performance from his players.
Since joining Wrexham in July 2021, his Hollywood owners have supported him greatly at each transfer window.
He signed James McClean from Wigan, George Evans, a midfielder for Millwall, goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo on loan from Arsenal, and defender Will Boyle from Huddersfield during the summer transfer window.
Even though his attempt to sign Harrogate striker Luke Armstrong on deadline day failed, he was still able to sign Steven Fletcher, a player with Premier League experience.
Bolton and Marriott, who are both still getting used to their new roles, gave him even more strength in January.
After the final whistle at Forest Green, Parkinson was seen arguing passionately with his coaching staff. He later admitted his team had not had a competitive advantage.
“The aim was to come here and get ourselves back in the top three, but we weren’t able to do that,” he said to the club’s media team following the game.
Even when we have more of the ball than we do, things don’t always work out as planned.
“We carried that into this game where we didn’t create the moments or things just didn’t fall for us in and around the box. That was on Saturday.”
Fans’ responses on the internet were more direct, with Stuart, a Wrexham supporter, summarising what many had to say.
He wrote, “That was a shocking performance,” in a post on X. So many gamers just appear to be idealess. Furthermore, Parky obviously doesn’t know how to alter it. He merely carries out the same routine each week in the hopes that anything will change.
With four home games and just two away throughout the month of March, Parkinson and his team now have an opportunity to turn things around.
This season, their performance at home has been really strong, with 12 victories, 2 ties, and just 2 losses at the Racecourse.
It is a far cry from their performance on the road, when they have only won five of their eighteen games, losing six of them, and drew seven of them.
On their travels, they have remarkably scored fewer than one goal a contest on average.
Parkinson could find himself nervously staring over his shoulder come May if he doesn’t deal with these problems and Wrexham doesn’t get promoted.
