Wrexham assistant manager Steve Parkin insists that Wycombe Wanderers aren’t the only team they should be worried about in the race for automatic promotion from League One.
The Red Dragons are chasing a third successive promotion and a place in next season’s Championship. They missed an opportunity to move level on points with second-placed Wycombe at the weekend when they could only manage a 0-0 draw with play-off chasers Bolton Wanderers at the STōK Cae Ras.
Birmingham City look almost guaranteed to be crowned champions come May and currently sit 12 points clear at the top with a game in hand. This leaves the rest to fight it out for that all important second spot. Although Wycombe and Wrexham have looked the teams to beat for the majority of the campaign, the chasing pack have started to gain ground.
Parkin Wary Of Threat From Below
The likes of Stockport County, Huddersfield Town and Charlton Athletic will still fancy their chances of sneaking into the top two, whilst seventh-placed Bolton Wanderers, currently 10 points adrift, are targeting a strong finish to the campaign.
Speaking after the draw with Bolton, Parkin has admitted he is wary of the threat posed by those below him and has predicted an exciting end to the season:
“Every game’s got so much on it and everybody can talk about putting pressure on Wycombe but there are so many permutations that can happen over the next few weeks,” he said.
“We’ve just got to make sure that we do our job and we keep picking points up.
“Yes, we would have liked three points against Bolton but we got one and we got a clean sheet so that has to be positive.
“Every game you play at this time, it’s difficult to win. It doesn’t matter who you play.
“There’s probably nine or 10 teams fearing relegation, so they’re fighting for their lives.
“Nine or 10 teams will believe they can get in the play-offs or get promoted so every game’s a really tough game and we found that over the last few weeks, we found that again today.”
Writer’s View
We’re getting to the stage of the season where every slip up could prove costly. Wrexham have dropped points in two of the last three games, which has led to those below them closing the gap. They face a tricky away game at Huddersfield tomorrow night. Defeat against the Terriers would see them move to within one point of the Welsh-based outfit. As the famous saying goes, it’s ‘squeaky bum’ time.
