‘Very frustrating’ Wrexham stat annoys Phil Parkinson – with Hollywood co-owners Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney unlikely to be big fans either

Despite dominating proceedings against local rivals at SToK Racecourse, the Red Dragons found themselves on the wrong end of a 1-0 scoreline. Struggles in the final third contributed to that disappointing defeat, with the likes of Paul Mullin, Steven Fletcher, Sam Dalby and Ollie Palmer unable to hit the back of the net.

Parkinson said afterwards of seeing his side draw a blank in back-to-back games, with a 0-0 draw with Harrogate played out in midweek: “If you look around the country and the results, and to have 25 attempts on goal, I don't think many teams would have had that but only four on target is not enough for the quality we have got. We needed to work the goalkeeper more. We have had some great moments, as we know football is all about taking them and we weren't able to do that. It was very frustrating for us. The lads have given their all again, I don't think there is any doubt about that, but we just couldn't quite find the moment.”

Luke Norris’ eighth-minute effort proved to be the difference against Tranmere, with Parkinson adding on a performance from his side that lacked any kind of cutting edge: “It is very frustrating. We dominated the first half in particular and one moment has cost us. It was a quick free-kick and we ended up one-v-one at the back and we got punished for that. But we still had so much play in the first-half to have got back in the game. The balance between playing at an intensity and speeding the game up, at times we were a bit frantic in our decision making and the clarity in those decisions in the final third wasn't where it needed to be to make the most of our dominance. We practically pinned them in for the whole 45 minutes but couldn't get the goal back. Second half, they changed their shape and we changed ours to a back-four and it became too open; the game became like they could score on the counter, and we still had some great moments where we needed to do better. We didn't have the control in the second half like we had in the first period, and we have got to look that.”

Hollywood co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney will be as frustrated as anybody at seeing Wrexham drop more points at a crucial stage of the season, but they remain inside the League Two automatic promotion places and have eight games left in which to wrap up a top-three finish.