Wrexham travel to face local rivals Shrewsbury Town in the third round of the FA Cup this Sunday and defender Tom Flanagan has delivered a warning to owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
Shrewsbury Town defender Tom Flanagan has warned Wrexham of the gap between the two teams in the EFL heading into their FA Cup tie.
Sunday sees Wrexham head to New Meadow in the third round of the prestigious cup competition. Phil Parkinson’s team defeated Yeovil Town and Mansfield Town in the previous rounds to secure their spot.
Wrexham and Shrewsbury are separated by 12 places, as well as being in two separate divisions. Shrewsbury currently sit 15th in League One, while Wrexham are third in League Two and in the automatic promotion spots.
Wrexham are no strangers to being in the FA Cup after the turn of the year. It was last season that Wrexham reached the fourth round of the competition, in the same season that owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney helped guide the club to promotion from the National League.
The game on Sunday will see the rivalry between the two clubs resume, with Wrexham and Shrewsbury separated by just over 40 miles across the Welsh border. Ahead of the game, Flanagan has issued a warning to Wrexham, insisting that the Welsh club’s Hollywood owners will not affect the game.
“I’m big on the respect thing between football clubs, but let’s make it known, they’re a League Two team, they’re coming here as a League Two team,” Flanagan told BBC Radio Shropshire. “Other League Two teams have been here and we’ve beaten them. So the expectation is that we beat them, whether it’s a local derby or not, they’re a League Two team.
“Who owns them, what they wear, who they are has absolutely no bearing on the game whatsoever. I’ve seen a few things and it’s like we’ve drawn a Premier League team, it’s certainly not the case. Now they’ve made it into the league and, fair play, they’ve done really well. It took them two goes to do it and they did eventually do it.
“But that’s what it is now, it’s a League One team against a League Two team and this is where you want to show why you’re a League One player and not a League Two player, as such. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve got some good players but they’re playing at that level for a reason, I’m a firm believer in that.”
Parkinson, who worked with Flanagan during their time at Sunderland, responded to the comments made by the defender. Parkinson acknowledged the reality in Flanagan’s remarks and admitted that an underdog mentality may help his team.
“He [Flanagan] is only saying that they are League One and we are League Two, and that’s a fact,” Parkinson said. “Of course, the team mid-table in League One and doing reasonably well are going to be favourites against a team a division below.
“We’ve got to go there with that underdog mentality and understand that to get through we need to reach the levels we did on New Year’s Day [4-1 win vs. Barrow] and probably above that.
“We’re a team that is used to playing with expectations on our shoulders, we feel we’ve created a team with the mentality to cope with that and this will be no different. The reality is we’re playing a team with established League One players who will have been hoping at the start of the season to push towards the play-off places so we know it is going to be a huge challenge.”
