Wrexham and Cardiff City have traded places in the Football League ahead of next season, and Phil Parkinson could yet rub salt in Bluebirds wounds.
Whilst Wrexham secured promotion from League One last season, Cardiff City suffered relegation from the Championship, and so the pair go another season without facing each other.
Instead, Phil Parkinson’s side will play Welsh rivals Swansea City in the second tier next season, and look to stabilise themselves following a stunning third-straight promotion under Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
But the Dragons could still do Cardiff a disservice this summer. Wrexham are linked with a number of Cardiff City players this summer, including Callum Robinson, Ollie Tanner and Isaak Davies.
Parkinson recently got the summer window underway with Wrexham announcing the signing of Ryan Hardie on a permanent deal from relegated Plymouth Argyle, in a move that cost the Dragons just £700,000.
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Cardiff City manager speaks out on summer transfers amid Wrexham links
Cardiff City have appointed Brian Barry-Murphy as their new manager. It’s been a while in the making but the Bluebirds can finally press on with their summer transfer plans, and it seems as though Barry-Murphy’s plans are largely based around keeping the bulk of his current squad intact for the next season.
Speaking to WalesOnline, the new Cardiff boss explained: “The key message I had was that there was no pressure to sell any player in the squad. A key process moving forward is, anything we want to improve in the club, I have the absolute support of the people at the top of the club to do that. That will be the mantra of pre-season and beyond.
“I’m really pleased with the squad and excited to start working with them next Monday. The most important factor for me was the assurance that a large number of this playing squad, which I know really well — players I’ve either worked with before or seen from the outside — are going to remain here.
“Any players we lose are going to be on our terms, not because we have to sell players, and that’s really important.”
Callum Robinson is the one who Wrexham have to go for
Tanner and Davies are squad players at Cardiff City, and so expect them to be exactly that if they were to join Wrexham this summer.
Neither player seems like a very exciting potential signing for the Dragons. But a move for Robinson could be a very shrewd one indeed, and one that aligns with Wrexham’s reported £25million transfer budget too.
Despite Cardiff being terrible last season, Robinson still managed to score 12 goals in the Championship, doing so in just 34 games whilst boasting a career total of 61 goals in 272 games, so he’d add vital experience as well as quality.
But Preston North End are now interested in signing Robinson too, and Barry-Murphy’s comments suggest that Cardiff could play hardball over Robinson this summer, who’s certainly one of their better players.
What’s more is that he remains under contract until the summer of 2027, so the Bluebirds aren’t exactly under any pressure to sell the 30-year-old.