Wrexham aims to keep alive Premier League dream

 

For Wrexham’s growing global fanbase, it’s set to be another heart-stopping end to the season.

This time, a place in the Premier League is at stake.

“I think a defibrillator is the traditional fifth season gift? Would make sense for this show,” Ryan Reynolds, the Hollywood celebrity who is a co-owner of the club, wrote on X in a nod to the “Welcome to Wrexham” series that has documented the team’s unprecedented journey up English soccer’s league pyramid.

The final step is the biggest one, though.

On Saturday, Wrexham heads into the final round of regular-season games in the second-tier Championship aiming to secure a place in the playoffs that will determine the last promotion spot to the Premier League.

The top two teams go up automatically — one of them is sure to be Coventry, which will finish first — and the teams finishing third to sixth will advance to the playoffs. With one match left, Wrexham is in sixth place.

That last playoff spot is a three-way contest between Wrexham, Hull (in seventh place, behind Wrexham on goal difference) and Derby (in eighth place, one point further back).

Wrexham has the toughest game — at home to fourth-place Middlesbrough, which needs to win to stand a chance of finishing in second spot.

Hull hosts ninth-place Norwich and Derby is at home to 15th-place Sheffield United. Wrexham is already assured of the highest finish in its 162-year history — its previous best was 15th in the second tier in the 1978-79 season — but still possible is a fourth straight promotion that would be beyond the owners’ wildest dreams.