Wrexham's Manager Phil Parkinson Reflects on 1-1 Draw with Burnley
Phil Parkinson did not try to dress it up. A point, yes. Progress, maybe. But Wrexham’s manager walked away from a 1-1 draw with Burnley knowing his team left plenty out on the pitch at the Racecourse.
Jacques Ekomie’s second-half header salvaged a result against a side who kicked off the night bottom of the Championship. It kept Wrexham’s unbeaten run alive at three games. It did not, though, end the nagging wait for a first home win of the season.
“There are things we can do better,” Parkinson admitted, the verdict as blunt as the performance was uneven.
Wrexham arrived with momentum behind them after a 3-0 dismantling of Millwall and a goalless draw at Swansea in which they barely allowed a clear sight of goal. Those two displays had been built on control without the ball, on structure and aggression out of possession.
This one was different.
Without it, Wrexham never quite got to grips with Burnley’s tweaks. Parkinson pointed to the tactical battle as the night’s key frustration. The visitors altered their shape, dragged Wrexham around, and for long spells in the first half the home side chased shadows rather than the game.
“Without the ball, tactically we didn’t get it quite right,” he said. Burnley’s adjustments caused problems, but so did Wrexham’s own passivity. The press that had suffocated Millwall and Swansea never really bit in the same way, and gaps began to open.
Where there had been a red wall in South Wales and at The Den, there were pockets of green grass for Burnley to exploit. “Against Burnley there was just a bit too much space in areas,” Parkinson said, highlighting how his side were “caught 10 to 15 yards too deep at times”.
That deeper line invited pressure and dulled Wrexham’s usual intensity. The Racecourse crowd waited for the familiar surge, the moments when the home side squeeze the life out of opponents, but Burnley found more room than recent visitors. The contrast with those previous clean sheets was stark.
The response came in the dressing room. At the interval, Parkinson and his staff reset the distances, sharpened the press and pushed the team higher. “At half-time we rectified that and the pressing was loads better,” he said, and the improvement showed as Wrexham finally pinned Burnley back and Ekomie rose to level.
The comeback underlined the team’s resilience. The manager’s words underlined his standards. Unbeaten in three, yet still restless. Still searching for that first home win. And with it, the complete performance he expects from a side determined not just to survive at this level, but to shape it.
