2024/25				Overall									Home						Away
				P	W	D	L	F	A	Gdf	Pts	Form	P	W	D	L	F	A	P	W	D	L	F	A
	1		Wrexham	5	4	1	0	11	2	+9	13	WWWO	3	3	0	0	9	2	2	1	1	0	2	0
	2		Charlton Athletic	6	4	1	1	6	3	+3	13	WXLW	3	2	1	0	4	1	3	2	0	1	2	2
	3		Huddersfield Town	5	4	0	1	10	3	+7	12	WLWW	2	2	0	0	3	1	3	2	0	1	7	2
	4		Stockport County	5	3	2	0	9	2	+7	11	XXWW	2	2	0	0	4	0	3	1	2	0	5	2
	5		Lincoln City	5	3	1	1	10	6	+4	10	XWWL	2	1	0	1	5	3	3	2	1	0	5	3
	6		Birmingham City	4	3	1	0	8	5	+3	10	WWWX	2	1	1	0	3	2	2	2	0	0	5	3

 

 

Hard to envisage a bigger game in the third tier. There have been some very big clubs playing at this level in recent years and attracting huge attendances, but such is Wrexham's profile around the globe, due to their Hollywood owners and the Welcome to Wrexham documentary series, that to most casual viewers of the sport and certainly in the US, they are as famous as any of the big Premier League teams. The series has been a huge success, collecting eight Primetime Emmy awards and attracting a huge number of visitors to Wrexham and worldwide interest in the club. It has been a wildly successful venture, Wrexham have already been promoted twice, rising from the National League to League 1 in successive seasons and they now sit top of the third tier, but it is far more than that, with the club getting a host of lucrative sponsorship deals, some of which would have been the envy of those two levels higher. It is an incredible story.

 

Birmingham are a much bigger club, but have fallen on hard times and their own US takeover early last season, hasn't worked out so well. They took over early in 23/24 with the club 6th in the Championship, replaced the head coach with a "big name" in Wayne Rooney, which was an ill fated move and even though the former England star did not last long, no replacement, and several tried, could address the slide and City found themselves in the third tier, with ambitious and wealthy owners feeling a little foolish with their predicament. Still, when things don't work, throwing money at the problem is always a good place to start, when you have it and City were the biggest spenders in the EFL by far, breaking all kinds of records for money spent at this level and they were backed down to ridiculously low odds to win League 1. Their start has been decent enough, but they have kept just one clean sheet in seven games (league and cup) , including being without one in four as host, winning just one and it is a very long time since St Andrews has been considered a fortress, or a venue that teams fear visiting, with the Blues having a 31.16% home win rate across the last six seasons. Anyway, they have spent a fortune, circa £30m, which is some 4-5 times that of the other 23 L1 teams combined. The supporters "believe" and are looking for success of any sort after a nightmare decade or so and the stadium is a 30,000 sell out this evening, despite the game being televised live on Sky. City have yet another new head coach and one who is respected in the game in Chris Davies, having been a long time #2 to Brendan Rodgers at a number of clubs and to Ange Postecoglu at Tottenham last season, however, this is his first senior appointment and he has limited EFL experience. Having said that, he can have no qualms about the talent and resources at his disposal.

 

Wrexham have the winning habit, winning 90 of 141 games (63.83%) since the start of 2021/22, scoring at the rate of 2.18 goal pg. Incredible numbers considering they are playing ever stronger opposition. That is what comes with confidence, they believe they are good and when they travel to the US in preseason and play Chelsea (2-2) like they did this summer, in front of a 33,000 crowd, they have come to see Wrexham, not the Big 6 EPL club. The pre season before last they played Manchester United in San Diego and won 3-1, it was a record crowd for the city and as famous as United are, it was more of the same and they were mostly there to watch and follow the Dragons. Wrexham are media darlings as I often mention and they rarely let the headline writers down and the bigger the stage the better it seems and this is as big as it gets in League 1. City have needed goals in the 85th, 88th and 92nd minutes to salvage a result in 3 of 4 home games, losing the other 2-0 and easy to see a team as confident and free scoring as Wrexham giving them further trouble and at odds quoted, the visitors have to be the shout.

 

1.75 units Wrexham level ball 3.22 asian line.

 

Good luck!