Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson plans to imitate his former club Sunderland’s Premier League strategy when the Reds gain promotion to the top-flight.
The second week of February is about to end soon. With that, there are just over 3 months left in the Premier League relegation race. At the time of writing, 20th placed Wolves can be ruled out for top-flight safety. Even Burnley have dismal chances of beating the drop to the Championship.
Elsewhere, it’s a tough battle between West Ham and Nottingham Forest regarding who will join the above two teams to the second-tier and which one will stay put in the Premier League. From the Championship, Middlesbrough, Ipswich Town and Coventry City are involved in a three-team race for the 2 automatic promotion spots.
The playoffs path is quite open for any team to capitalise, though. Wrexham could be the ones going up through the current playoffs format. However, will they be able to sustain their Premier League status where all previous 6 teams have immediately dropped down after getting promoted in the past two years?
Atleast, boss Phil Parkinson believes so. He has shed light on his former club which has almost avoided Premier League relegation for the 2025/26 season.
Phil Parkinson praises Sunderland’s Premier League strategy
Before arriving at Wrexham, current boss Phil Parkinson was in charge of guiding Sunderland up from League One. Although he couldn’t claim a promotion there, Parkinson stayed there for a year and improved the Black Cats to a significant extent.
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Now that Sunderland are in the Premier League, Parkinson has hinted at imitating their transfer strategy at Wrexham. In his own words, the Leader Live quoted Parkinson saying: “There are teams who have (gone up) and established themselves as Premier League teams. Look at Sunderland for instance, they’ve spent the money from the TV revenue wisely, they’ve got themselves in a great position and it shows it can be done.”
Football is played on the pitch, there’s no debate on that. But it’s also true that assembling a strong squad makes it easy to win games one after the other. Nowadays, it takes roughly 35-40 points in the Premier League to stay assured about avoiding relegation.
Largely thanks to Sunderland’s 2025 summer transfer window, Regis Le Bris’ men are 11th in the table and on track for a comfortable mid-table finish.
Sunderland 2025/26 best signings
Starting from the No.1 position, Sunderland acted quickly to sign Robin Roefs despite boasting of a quality Championship keeper, Anthony Patterson in their ranks. That move worked well. In defence, Sunderland snapped up Reinildo Mandava for free as well as bought Omar Alderete and Nordi Mukiele on bargain deals.
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Add Premier League veteran Granit Xhaka, and Ajax’s Brian Brobbey and the Black Cats gathered a strong core for their starting eleven. They also got some big money moves wrong like buying Habib Diarra and Simon Adingra on expensive deals. However, the few quality players they already had compensated for it.
That’s it. A handful of perfect deals and Sunderland are set for a bright Premier League future unless they mess up their future management appointments. Likewise, Wrexham have several key players like Nathan Broadhead, Max Cleworth, Ollie Rathbone, Callum Doyle, Sam Smith and Arthur Okonkwo.
Backing them along with a couple of other star performers, and then signing 5-6 star players will be enough to survive in the Premier League. From then, the Reds can plot further Premier League objectives like finishing inside the top 10, qualifying for European football. Even, challenge for the Champions League places some day but that will take time.
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- Arsenal legend drops Championship playoffs prediction (it’s not Wrexham)
- Sam Smith’s poor Wrexham luck continues with PFA January POTM setback
