Wrexham welcome Hull City to the Racecourse on Tuesday night for a League Cup game under the lights.
Wrexham play their first home game of the season against Championship rivals Hull City in the League Cup first round.
It comes after the Dragons lost their Championship opener in dramatic style last weekend as Wrexham fell to a 2-1 defeat against Southampton, with the Saints scoring twice in the 90th and then in the 96th minute of the game.
Regardless, there are a lot of positives for Phil Parkinson to take from the game, and expect Wrexham fans to be excited to get a look at this new-look side at the Racecourse on Tuesday. Hull City, meanwhile, opened their campaign under new manager Sergej Jakirovic.
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Hull City manager Sergej Jakirovic rates Wrexham’s new signings
Speaking to the press on Monday, Hull City boss Jakirovic gave his verdict on Wrexham and their summer so far. The Bosnian manager hailed Wrexham’s summer signings and also their winning mentality after Wrexham secured a third-straight promotion last season under owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac.
Speaking to the press, Jakirovic also gave a potential reason as to why Wrexham fell short against Southampton in the season opener, suggesting that the team needs more time to gel given the influx of new signings, Jakirovic said: “It’s very interesting because they have a winning mentality for sure.
“A lot of new players they brought. I think they also need a time to fix everything and of course I expect tough game because it’s first official game at their stadium, so it will be for sure tough, but we also have our own plans and we will see what will happen.”
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Wrexham’s game vs Hull City will be special for one summer signing
Wrexham and Hull City could be quite evenly matched in the Championship this season. Despite Wrexham’s downfall at Southampton, there were a lot of positives to take from the Dragons’ performance and a lot of signs to suggest that they’ll be quite alright competing in the Championship.
Given time, the Dragons should become more formidable as a unit. Like Jakirovic says, given the amount of new signings, it will inevitably take time for the squad to get to grips not only with the Championship but with their new teammates too. Among the new signings is Lewis O’Brien.
Wrexham signed O’Brien in a club record deal from Nottingham Forest earlier in the summer but he was actually a key target for Hull City at one point. And it looked as though Hull City were leading the race to sign O’Brien until the Tigers were hit with a transfer embargo.
That allowed Wrexham to swoop in for O’Brien and he put in a good shift on his debut on Saturday though whether Parkinson plays the midfielder on Tuesday night remains to be seen.
Expect the Dragons to make several changes to their XI ahead of the home game against West Brom in the Championship on Saturday.