Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson praises Max Cleworth as the defender enters the club’s history record with the highest number of appearances made for the Reds.
For Wrexham, the missed opportunity against Millwall hurts far more than the 0-2 defeat itself. Having entered the matchday with a chance to extend Phil Parkinson’s Wrexham tally to 150 wins, the Reds ended with disappointed faces at full-time.
Despite creating enough chances, Wrexham’s finishing saw them witness more injuries than goals scored. With Matty James and Libby Cacace forced off, the club endured a physical toll apart from losing the opportunity to grab the 5th ranking for the first time.
Interestingly, everything wasn’t worse for Wrexham even in this bleak result. While the club faithful would be disappointed on most other metrics, they celebrated Max Cleworth’s 173rd appearance landmark.
After his 90-minute outing against Millwall, Cleworth moved ahead of his joint-most Wrexham appearances tally with Paul Mullin. With the striking legend unlikely to ever feature for the Reds again, Cleworth has made a significant leap compared to other players in the games metric.
Even though boss Parky wasn’t the happiest with the Millwall defeat, he took a moment to vouch for Cleworth’s record. Post-game, Parkinson praised the 23-year-old, saying he represents Wrexham completely.
As quoted by the BBC, Parky talked of Cleworth, mentioning: “To watch him adapt each season has been enjoyable. He’s a very professional lad. He works really hard at his game. Max is like the team in general. If you stand still, someone steps in and takes your place.”
Max Cleworth represents Wrexham perfectly
While Wrexham’s success story has used a plethora of players, Cleworth is the only one continuing from their National League era. Being the oldest servant of the club, the academy star has seen the misery to success story at Wrexham.
As Phil Parkinson highlighted, Max Cleworth is “like the team in general”. Especially, for how the defender’s rise has been perfectly synchronised with Wrexham’s growth over the years.
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In his early years in the first-team setup, Max Cleworth saw game time come challenging. It was with Parky’s arrival that both Wrexham and Cleworth realised and performed up to their actual potential and talent.
While Phil Parkinson handed Max Cleworth his league debut in his inaugural game, it wasn’t an easy journey for him ahead. As Wrexham missed the League Two promotion in the 2021/22 season, Cleworth’s status took a dip too.
With Cleworth still young and developing, it wasn’t until the 2024/25 campaign that he was given the starting responsibilities. However, in all these years, he barely complained or sought an exit route.
Cleworth’s patience eventually bore fruit just like Wrexham’s story. Ultimately, while most other club defenders lost priority as the Reds jumped to higher divisions, it was the opposite for Max Cleworth.
Fast forward to now, and he’s played the most minutes for Wrexham in this Championship season. Having formed an exceptional trio with Captain Dom Hyam and Callum Doyle, Cleworth is untouchable for Phil Parkinson now.
While Cleworth’s development is well appreciated, the centre-back would have wanted to delay his important landmark for later. While his record 173rd appearance ended in a defeat, it was a nightmare for Cleworth individually.
Millwall outing was Cleworth’s worst Wrexham game
Throughout his 173 appearances and counting, Max Cleworth has seen many highs and lows with Wrexham. However, the latest defeat to Millwall will go down as his worst performance by far in a Wrexham shirt.
Time and again, Max Cleworth has been hailed for his game awareness and footballing IQ to get the best of opposition forwards. But the 23-year-old committed some rookie-level errors in the recent home outing against Millwall.
Max Cleworth seemed to lose his focus on the back of a frustrating first half. This led to him making a couple of decisive errors that turned the course of the game against Wrexham’s favour.
Firstly, Max Cleworth made an extremely late challenge on opposition winger Camiel Neghli. If collecting just his 3rd yellow card this season wasn’t erroneous, Cleworth accidentally complemented it with a blunder.
Within minutes of going into the referee’s book, Cleworth put the ball into his own net. With Femi Azeez’s cross arriving straight into the box, the defender felt indecisive of whether to clear the ball or lay it towards keeper Arthur Okonkwo for a save.
Eventually, Max Cleworth’s bad positioning saw Wrexham concede with no Millwall shot on target. This goal later went on to decide the result, as Wrexham never recovered from their own goal against the run of play.
On the positive side, Max Cleworth is expected to bounce back for the learning centre-back he is. With the upcoming game being an FA Cup knockout Vs Ipswich, Cleworth is expected to be at his best when Wrexham lines up without some key players.
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