Ollie Palmer remains a popular and well-known member of the Wrexham team, but this summer transfer window could well be the one that sees him leave the club for good.
Already this summer, Wrexham have said goodbye to Paul Mullin, albeit only on a temporary basis, with Mullin joining Wigan Athletic on loan, though many seem to think that we’ve seen the last of Mullin in a Wrexham shirt.
Last season, Ollie Palmer barely played for the Dragons. In the second half of the season in particular, manager Phil Parkinson exiled Palmer, who featured only a handful of times in the second half of the season.
Going into this summer, many expected Palmer would leave, but to the surprise of many, he started Wrexham’s pre-season opener against Melbourne Victory, and even more to the surprise was the fact that Palmer had a good game.
Wrexham fans were impressed with what they saw from Palmer, and many now think that he could actually have a future with the club next season.
But the 33-year-old is out of contract in a year’s time though, so there’s a lot of uncertainty over what this summer holds for the big striker.
Wrexham’s striker plans surely leave Ollie Palmer in the dark
Amid the Palmer uncertainty, we might now have our answer, and it’s come in the form of two transfer updates coming out of the Racecourse in the last few days. The first being that Josh Windass looks set to make a move to Wales.
Windass has left Sheffield Wednesday as a free agent, and Wrexham are interested in signing the experienced Championship forward, who scored 13 goals in the second tier for Sheffield Wednesday last season. Reports have now revealed that Windass is set for a medical with Wrexham, and that surely shunts Palmer even further down the pecking order.
The second is that Wrexham now look set to spend big on a striker this summer. We already know that the Dragons have a chunky £25million transfer budget for this summer, and subsequent reports in the last 24 hours have revealed that Wrexham will spend up to £10m on a new striker signing this summer, in a bid to keep themselves in the Championship for next season.
What James McClean said about Ollie Palmer proves he’d be sorely missed
Despite a record of three goals in 27 League One games last season, Palmer has been a consistent source of goals for the Dragons over the last few years. In fact, in 149 total games he’s scored an impressive 42 goals, with 17 league goals in the 2022/23 promotion season.
Not only has he been a great servant for the club, and may still be so, but he’s hugely popular too, among fans around the world.
Speaking from New Zealand last week, James McClean revealed Palmer was the most popular Wrexham player down under. McClean said: “Apart from me? Ollie Palmer, he’s quite popular. Obviously he’s been here from the start of the show and he’s a big character anyway, and kind of embraces the fame and popularity, he almost kind of basks in it! Ollie loves the spotlight.”
If this summer really is the end for Palmer then he’d leave as nothing short of a club legend.