Wrexham are set to return to Championship action this weekend when they travel to Staffordshire to face off against Stoke City.
The Red Dragons are currently on an unbeaten run of four games in the division, with the ambition this weekend of continuing that streak with a Wrexham win against Stoke, ending a 26-year wait for a victory against the Potters.
Stoke will be without Bae Jun-ho due to injury, which could limit their creativity and threat in attack. While the Potters are missing a key player through injury, Phil Parkinson will be pleased to see some of his squad returning from time on the sidelines.
Their return will give the Red Dragons manager something he has not had during this unbeaten spell in the Championship: options to select from regarding his starting XI and the ability to alter the team’s formation.
Wrexham could alter their formation for the Stoke City clash
The Welsh club have been using a 3-4-3 formation during their unbeaten spell recently, which has worked for them; however, this could be about to change now several players are returning from injury.
Ollie Rathbone is set to return to the squad for the clash with Stoke, and Liberato Cacace is nearing a return from injury too, which gives Parkinson options both personnel-wise and tactically.
The Wrexham manager explained this to the Leader, as he said: “We worked on the shape in pre-season in Australia and New Zealand, so it was not a major shift.
“The problem we had was we then changed a lot of players round and had a few injury problems, and it has taken us a while to be able to get the personnel on the pitch we feel this (3-4-3 system) suits.
“We’ve got plenty of options within both shapes, and if we wanted to change it again, we’ve got good flexibility in the group.”
The Wrexham tactical shape for the Stoke City fixture
While there is a discussion that Parkinson may return to the 3-5-2 shape that Wrexham had started the season with, there have been no calls for this to happen due to the form since shifting the shape of the team.
The performances were not concerning during the opening fixtures of the season, but they were not able to get consistent results, and that was a major problem for the team, with this changing once the tactical shape was altered.
Parkinson may argue that you don’t change a winning formula, and while this has got results for them, they are not winning, so perhaps he may alter it slightly to see if they can secure all three points against Stoke.
However, from his recent comments, the manager believes that the balance, defensively and in attack, is better under the new system, with it unlikely that he would want to disrupt this.
He said: “In every game we’ve created good opportunities, and that’s obviously important for us.
“But equally, the shape when we’re attacking has been better and the structure out of possession.
“When to close and when to stay in our shape, I think we’ve improved on that in recent weeks, and that’s a key part of the game, not to go chasing in ones and twos.
“You’ve got to be ready as a group to press, and when you go, you’ve got to go aggressively and look to win the ball back like we did when Lewis O’Brien got his chance against Birmingham.”