As Exeter City boss Gary Caldwell discovered in a 3-0 hammering at the Racecourse, knowing what Wrexham are going to do and stopping them from doing it are two very different things.
With eight of their 25 League One goals coming from set-piece situations, former centre-half Caldwell was keen to drill into his Grecians players pre-match that Saturday’s meeting was likely to be a game decided by corners and free-kicks.
And, as it turns out, he was right.
Caldwell could have been forgiven for wondering why he had bothered highlighting their host’s greatest threat when Wrexham’s Max Cleworth soared through the air to thump home from a trademark Elliot Lee corner with just seven minutes on the clock.
From the opposite flank, meanwhile, Wrexham doubled their lead just 18 minutes later via another cross albeit this time from open play.
Exeter City boss frustrated as Wrexham’s crosses come in clutch
It was Ryan Barnett who delivered – Wrexham’s most in-form player signed a new contract on Friday and celebrated in style 24 hours on – with giant striker Ollie Palmer on hand to finish.
Caldwell must have been hoping Exeter had learned their lessons by that point. Unfortunately not, James McLean finding the head of Ollie Rathbone from the corner flag as Wrexham emphatically wrapped up all three points.
“Always disappointed to lose the game and disappointed to lose it in a way [where] we showed the threat Wrexham have from corners and crosses,” Caldwell sighs, speaking to reporters at full-time. “They scored form a corner and a cross, and we didn’t deal with it.
“I thought we started the game well. But we didn’t win enough duels, we didn’t run enough and we weren’t aggressive enough. I thought we were kind of out-muscled in that initial period.
“We gave them goals we knew they could score. They are very dangerous from those opportunities but we didn’t control the game in the way we would have liked.
“We were second best in that first half and we have to look at ourselves.”
Gary Caldwell highlights Wrexham’s ‘physicality and quality’
Following a run of just two wins in six games across all competitions – Wrexham were knocked out of the FA Cup by fourth-tier Harrogate Town while slipping up in the league – a comfortable 3-0 triumph on home soil was the perfect tonic for Phil Parkinson and co.
With Birmingham City collapsing at Shrewsbury Town, Wrexham climbed back up to second. Exeter, meanwhile, failed to make up any ground on their rival play-off battlers.
“We knew the threat [of Wrexham]. We worked on the threat,” Caldwell points out, the manner of Exeter’s defeat hurting the most. “Its just difficult to stop it and, today, we didn’t stop it. We knew they could score from crosses and we didn’t stop the cross.
“Palmer scores an identical goal here that we showed the team on Thursday or Friday, so we know the threat. But, as a team, I think we have to be better in the physical aspects of the game, the duels. When the game is in the balance, we need to compete better than we did in the first-half.
“We got done by the physicality of Wrexham and the quality they have from set pieces.”