Wrexham completed the signing of striker Ryan Hardie on Monday as Phil Parkinson kickstarted his summer transfer business.
Wrexham fans saw rumour after rumour emerge after winning promotion to League One, but the first signing of the window took a little while to emerge.
Phil Parkinson doesn’t tend to rush into his transfer business, and his patience appears to have paid off.
Wrexham signed Ryan Hardie from Plymouth Argyle on Monday evening, handing the striker a three-year contract.
Parkinson has pounced to activate a relegation release clause, meaning Hardie has cost Wrexham just £700,000.
22 goals in the last two Championship seasons highlight Hardie’s quality at this level, and he will hopefully make a big impact for Wrexham moving forward.
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What the managers say about Ryan Hardie
Plymouth fans are sad to see Hardie go, with the 28-year-old becoming a hero in his five-and-a-half-year spell with the Pilgrims.
Hardie’s pace will be a real asset to Wrexham, and the Scot’s managers over the years have heaped praise on him.
“He’s been different class. When he’s running at defenders or goalkeepers, he’s immense, and the work rate in him was fantastic,” – Former Plymouth Argyle boss Ryan Lowe, 2021 (BBC Sport)
“He has got so much quality. The touch to bring it down out the air from that high was outstanding, and then there was his calmness in front of goal. It doesn’t matter if he has missed a few chances in the first half, he just keeps going, and he backs himself all the time because he knows in this team we create chances for him. He knows he’s going to get them and he’s confident to take them. Once again, he has proved how good he is,” Ex-Plymouth Argyle boss Steven Schumacher after Hardie’s goal against Charlton Athletic in 2023. (Plymouth Herald)
“He’s a lovely finisher, he has got great timing, and he has got great natural talent. A lot of nines you will see in the division, and beyond, they just have a knack of arriving at the right time, and he seems to have that,” – Ex-Plymouth Argyle boss Ian Foster in 2024 (Plymouth Herald)
“When we were missing Hardie for five or six games it cost us a lot because if you can get Hardie in a finishing position that’s half of the job. It’s a killer instinct for a number nine, clinical, and we missed that so, so many games. If you want to win a game you need to score a goal and you need to rely then on a goalscorer and reliable goal source, and he’s exactly that kind of player for Argyle. It’s not coincidence that Ryan Hardie scored those two goals,” Ex-Plymouth Argyle boss Miron Muslic after Hardie’s brace against Norwich City in April 2025 (BBC Sport)
Ryan Hardie makes perfect sense for Wrexham
Forget Jamie Vardy and any other ‘superstar’ names, as they simply aren’t what Phil Parkinson wants in the Wrexham dressing room.
Signings like Hardie will be the target, and the Scottish forward makes sense on multiple levels.
Hardie possesses the pace to really threaten defences in behind, an attribute Wrexham really needed to bring a different dimension to Parkinson’s side.
Hardie also arrives having put together two strong seasons in the Championship.
Wrexham’s strikers either haven’t scored regularly in the Championship in recent memory or have not really had chances at this level before.
Hardie brings Championship know-how and a reliable source of goals in the second tier as Wrexham look for more success.