Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney’s right-hand man irked by 'manager is sh*t' jibes as Wrexham’s Hollywood co-owners stick with 'why not us' mantra

Phil Parkinson has been at the helm throughout the Red Dragons’ meteoric rise from the National League to within touching distance of automatic promotion into the Championship. His methods are not, however, always to everybody’s taste.

Wrexham have grown accustomed to winning, providing plenty of drama for their award-winning documentary, so any supposed wobble can be blown out of proportion. Their Hollywood co-owners are, though, continuing to dream big.

Ker has told The Athletic of wild swings in emotion at SToK Racecourse: “Phil isn’t a manager who is happy with stability,” he says. “Same for Rob and Ryan as well. If Rob has a philosophy that can be condensed into one sentence then it would be, ‘Why not us?’.

“He doesn’t care for conventional wisdom. He likes to break the mould. Phil, (assistant) Steve Parkin and this group of players are all the same. They want to win. It’s why when people bag on them, it gets my goat.

“Being more removed from things, it’s been fascinating to watch expectations evolve as the season has gone on. Back in August at the Wycombe game, I was telling everyone, ‘Anything above 12th, we should build a statue of Phil’.

“Fans were saying the same to me. But we’ve gone from that to now, where we’ve been right up at the top of the table all season and massively outperformed all expectations, and yet I’m reading comments such as, ‘Can’t believe we scraped past Mansfield’. Or, ‘The manager is sh*t’.”

Wrexham did see their bid for major silverware and a day out at Wembley come to a close in the EFL Trophy semi-finals, as they suffered a penalty shootout defeat to Peterborough, but have gone unbeaten through their last four League One fixtures – picking up 10 points – to draw level with second-placed Wycombe in the third-tier table.