Wrexham paid good money for Sam Smith in the January transfer window, and it proved to be money well-spent for the Dragons.
Sam Smith left Reading in January to move to the Racecourse on a permanent deal. Wrexham paid £2million to sign Smith which made him the club’s record signing, though that record looks as though it could be smashed in this summer’s transfer window.
In the end, Smith scored seven goals in 18 League One appearances for Wrexham, ending the season with 18 league goals after scoring 11 in the first half of the campaign with Reading.
But Smith arguably made up for all that £2million transfer fee with two goals in Wrexham’s 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic towards the end of April: the win that sealed the club’s promotion to the Championship under Phil Parkinson.
Smith scored a volley in the first half to make it 2-0 to Wrexham, sealing the win in the 81st minute with his second of the game, and his 18th of the season.
Ryan Reynolds hails Wrexham striker Sam Smith’s sheer strength
Speaking on Men in Blazers, Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds was talking about that Charlton Athletic game, and about Smith. What the Hollywood star finds most interesting about Smith though is the sheer strength that he possesses.
Reynolds said of the 27-year-old: “The thing about Sam Smith that I think is more interesting is how strong he is… The other players on the opposing team, they’re more like bowling pins. He just kind of runs through people. He is just muscle. I don’t think he even has room for a liver or lungs or anything else, I think it’s actually all muscle.”
It seems to be a theme among the club’s attacking signings with names like Paul Mullin and Steven Fletcher also a couple of strikers with not only great technical and finishing ability, but also a great degree of physicality about their games too.
Phil Parkinson needs a different type of striker for the Championship
Everyone says how physical every league in the Football League is, which is true. And everyone says how much more physical the Championship can be than any other league, arguably in the world.
But it’s not only a physical league, it’s also one with a huge amount of technical ability: the likes of which Wrexham under Parkinson have never experienced.
So for Parkinson, signing players like Smith who can barge through opposition players will remain a key focus in the transfer window, but so too is signing players with enough technicality to serve them in the Championship.
The summer transfer window opens on June 1st and already there seems to be a growing number of players linked with Wrexham, in what promises to be the most lucrative transfer window in the club’s entire history.