Wrexham's frustrating transfer window: Why are the newly-promoted Red Dragons struggling to make summer signings?

One of the biggest differences between League Two and the National League is the existence of financial rules. Last season, Wrexham were permitted to 'live in the red' as they thrived for promotion, offering contracts as large as they wanted without the fear of being penalised.

Things will be different this campaign, due to the EFL's Financial Fair Play regulations, which limit League Two clubs to spending 55 percent of its turnover on player wages. In theory, this has the potential of curtailing Wrexham's spending - but the reality is rather different.

While the Dragons do now have a 'salary cap', they will still comfortably boast the most fearsome spending power in League Two. Not only are Wrexham set to have the highest attendances in the division - aside from Bradford City - their commercial power dwarfs their rivals' by a considerable margin.

Nothing demonstrated this more aptly than Reynolds and McElhenney agreeing a big-money sponsorship deal with United Airlines this summer - a name that would look more at home on the front of the shirts of a Champions League team. The club's historic Racecourse Ground similarly bears the name of a high-profile company, SToK Cold Brew.

While the exact value of these agreements has not been disclosed publicly, it's safe to assume that they are the most lucrative in League Two history. When you're bringing in this much money, 55% of your revenue is still more than enough to bring in pretty much any lower-league player. So, Financial Fair Play likely hasn't got much to do with Wrexham's quiet summer.

A more plausible explanation for the lack of business is that Wrexham have simply been outmaneuvered in the market. The club has tightly guarded against leaks this summer, but a few rumoured targets have managed to slip through the cracks.

Alfie May was one such name linked. May is understood to have been on Wrexham's radar for some time after impressing for Cheltenham Town over the past few years. In the end though, he ended up at League One Charlton Athletic, supposedly due to a desire to be closer to his family in Kent.

Another player who has seemingly fallen through the net is Max Power. After a turbulent season at Wigan Athletic, amid all of their off-field issues, Power was on the free agency market. If Wrexham were genuinely interested, the feeling was not mutual, with the midfielder becoming the latest player to head to Saudi Arabia recently - albeit in the second division.

Ex-Premier League midfielders Jonny Williams and Nick Powell won't be playing for Wrexham this season either, sealing moves to Gillingham and Stockport Country, respectively. Reynolds and McElhenney are used to getting their own way in the transfer market, but this summer has been a different story.

It's not all been doom and gloom at the SToK Racecourse this summer, however. In June, Ben Foster announced he would be sticking around for another year. Foster played a key role in promotion last season, famously making a decisive penalty save in the de-facto title showdown against Notts County in April.

"At the end of last season it was obvious that I enjoyed being at the club, I loved being part of the team and everything that Wrexham stands for," he said. "The fans took to me so warmly, Phil Parkinson is brilliant, Steve Parkin is top class, I love Aidan Davison to bits, and the co-chairmen are out of this world. I’d decided before the end of last season I wanted to do it, because it feels like home. I’ve never joined a football club and felt at ease so quickly.”

Foster's continued commitment to the cause was far from a sure thing. Not only is he 40, he has also taken to post-career life better than most footballers, setting up a hugely-successful YouTube channel. But with the veteran stopper opting to stick around, Wrexham now possess one of the strongest goalkeeping departments in League Two.

Convincing Foster to stay put speaks to one of Parkinson's wider aims for the summer: keeping his title-winning squad settled. Much was made of the Dragons' decision to release 11 players in May, but none of those out of contract featured significantly last season.

As a result, most of those who helped the club end their non-league exile look set to be given a chance in League Two. This isn't as much as a risk as it may appear either. In recent transfer windows, the club have clearly been recruiting for life in the Football League anyway, as evidence by the arrivals of Mullin, Lee, Tozer and Co.

In this way, none of the current squad will be daunted by the step up in quality. Registering a record-breaking 111 points last season proved just how far ahead of the competition they were in the fifth tier, and suggests that the squad does not even need much tinkering to remain competitive next campaign.

Perhaps this is why Wrexham have been so reserved this summer? They already got all of their League Two-standard players through the door over the previous four transfer windows. Midfielder Tom O'Connor has even been attracting admiring glances from Championship sides - and he is far from the only member of Parkinson's squad who would walk into a higher-division team if they left Wrexham.

Despite this, there clearly is some desire within the club to strengthen in some capacity over the coming weeks. Parkinson has revealed as much each time he's been interviewed over the summer.

"We get linked with a lot of players. Some have got an element of truth in, some haven’t got any at all," he said in June. "We are working hard behind the scenes to add quality and we are looking at several options, but like I have stressed before, we won’t be making signings just for the sake of it, and just to say we have completed a signing. We don’t need to do that, and we are going into pre-season with a good squad already."

More recently he intriguingly hinted that the club had even been looking outside of the United Kingdom for their new recruits. "I don't think we need loads of players. I think we already got 20-plus players and if we can bring one or two key players, then I will be happy. If we didn't and we continued with the same squad, I won't be complaining," he stated during a chat with the TWS Sports Podcast.

"We are looking abroad as well. So we are looking at those markets as well. There's been new rules brought in recently, the rules to bring in a couple of foreign players have been relaxed so we are looking at those markets as well. Obviously, it's quite complex judging players at those levels. We are looking across the board really and we are trying to get the best quality we can in our budget."

Parkinson's relaxed attitude to player recruitment is typical of his understated media-handling style. However, privately, he must be slightly concerned about the uncertainty surrounding his final squad for the season.

Wrexham's pre-season tour of the United States is just around the corner, and there is less than a month until the League Two season kicks-off. Anyone who arrives too late to accompany their new team-mates across the Atlantic will miss a key chance to integrate into the first-team squad, potentially limiting their chances of hitting the ground running when the 2023-24 campaign gets going.

On a more positive note, that is not to say that no signings will be completed before pre-season properly begins. Unlike at the highest reaches of the game, where the sheer amount of stakeholders involved in transfers means that every minute detail of a deal gets briefed to the media, lower-league signings can remain a mystery to fans until the day they are announced.

Therefore, Wrexham are likely a lot closer to breaking their transfer duck than we might think.