Wrexham started 2025 on the wrong foot on Wednesday, losing 2-1 to Barnsley at Oakwell in their opening fixture of the year.
Wrexham’s defeat to Barnsley left Phil Parkinson’s side dropping points in their opening fixture of the year, which was especially disappointing after Wrexham’s win over Wigan Athletic on Sunday.
Former Red Dragons man Davis Keillor-Dunn opened the scoring after 11 minutes with a wonderful strike from the edge of the box, which was matched by Adam Phillips’ strike to double Barnsley’s lead.
The second half saw Wrexham pile pressure onto the Barnsley defence, with James McClean and Ryan Barnett showing their usual threat from set-piece deliveries, eventually leading to Wrexham’s goal through Max Cleworth.
Chance after chance continued to come for the Wrexham squad, but an equaliser never came which left the Red Dragons without a reward for their second-half pressure.
Here are five things we learned from Wrexham’s 2-1 defeat to Barnsley on New Year’s Day.
Rare defensive errors for Wrexham
Regardless of the Barnsley defeat, Wrexham still have the most clean sheets in League One, which made their defensive errors at Oakwell incredibly surprising. For the second goal especially, Eoghan O’Connell slipped on the halfway line which allowed Keillor-Dunn to race through and find Phillips.
The Wrexham squad’s ability to defend has been one of the main reasons for their charge for League One promotion, but it let them down against Barnsley.
Paul Mullin prefers a partnership with Steven Fletcher
Attacking-wise, Parkinson led with Ollie Palmer and Paul Mullin with Elliot Lee unavailable, a partnership that never seemed to link up against Barnsley.
Palmer’s usual ability to create opportunities using his physicality never quite worked, with the target man replaced by Steven Fletcher at halftime.
The change seemed to invigorate Mullin, who was infinitely more lively in the second half, showing Parkinson that Fletcher may need to be used from the off to help get the best out of his star striker.
Elliot Lee’s creativity was missed
Elliot Lee was fit to feature against Wigan and played 20 minutes in Sunday’s victory, but was unavailable for Parkinson against Barnsley to the Red Dragons’ detriment.
Fletcher certainly helped the Wrexham attack when he was introduced, but the creativity and technical ability of Lee would’ve provided a different aspect to the Wrexham frontline that were limited to crosses and set pieces.
Parkinson has raved about Lee this season, with the Wrexham manager clearly missing his key forward against Barnsley.
Phil Parkinson could do no more for Wrexham
Alongside the defensive errors, Parkinson must’ve been in disbelief at some of the attacking action on display that he had no way to impact.
The second half saw Wrexham fail to take advantage of a remarkable 17 shots, including six on target. Parkinson’s side also had ten corners in the second period, emphasising that the chances were there to take at least a point if not all three back to the Racecourse Ground.
Wrexham could do with a striker like Davis Keillor-Dunn
A single moment of quality was all that was needed from one of Wrexham’s forward players to take one of the countless chances created in the second half.
That moment of quality was on display by Keillor-Dunn, with the former Wrexham man opening the scoring with a lovely curling strike beyond the outstretched Mark Howard.
Keillor-Dunn is outscoring Mullin this season which must have made Parkinson wish that he had the ex-Red Dragon leading his front line on Wednesday.