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Wrexham should copy Sunderland's blueprint for Premier League success
Martin Macdonald
- 13 Feb 2026 15:01 CST
- 6 min read
Nieuws
Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson reckons the success of Sunderland in the Premier League this season is a blueprint to follow for any promoted teams from the Championship.
After three successive promotions Wrexham, backed by the millions of Hollywood superstars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, are among the mix in the Championship playoff positions and are in with a real shout of making it to the English top-flight.
When Reynolds and McElhenney took over, they promised Premier League football, though not even they would have predicted this stratospheric rise.
As for Sunderland, they achieved promotion after winning the 2024/25 playoffs and subsequently invested heavily in the summer to sustain themselves in the Premier League, spending €213 million.
At the moment, the Black Cats are healthily positioned in 11th after 26 matches played. With 12 games to go, they are only four points away from the fabled 40-point mark that generally sees a team safe.
Parkinson is impressed by what they have achieved and by the overall competitiveness of this season's Championship.
“It's so competitive, just look at this division, it's incredible," he said. "It's the tightness and competitiveness of the division, there's so many teams in contention and we're one of them.
“There are teams who have [gone up] and established themselves as Premier League teams. Look at Sunderland for instance, they've spent the money from the TV revenue wisely, they've got themselves in a great position and it shows it can be done.
“Looking at the Championship, there's a lot of potentially huge clubs in this division - probably, in terms of support, bigger than some teams that are in there [the Premier League] at the moment.”
Wrexham backed to survive in the Premier League
More often than not, promoted sides struggle with the step-up in quality to the top-flight, only to go straight back down so Wrexham will need to prepare themselves for the change.
Former Premier League star Rob Earnshaw believes the club has the infrastructure to succeed and urged Reynolds and McElhenney to continue spending to bring in additional quality, akin to Nottingham Forest's splurge after gaining promotion.
“I think they will stay in the Premier League if they went up," the Welshman predicted.
"They are very open in terms of understanding what would be needed. That’s one of the hard things because sometimes you can go up to the Premier League and be a bit more rigid in terms of how you see things and don’t want seven/eight/nine new players, you only want four or five, or you don’t understand what is needed to stay in that league.
“I think they work in a way of being open to what is the best thing for the football club and the best thing to continue improving the quality. That is one of the biggest battles that you always find, the not understanding or being old-school in not being able to adapt or evolve with the times and with what the Premier League needs.
“Long story short, absolutely they can stay in the Premier League. Now they are starting to believe that there is an outside chance of them going up this season. At the beginning of the season I said ‘no chance, it’s too much for them’. Now, they have made the right signings and the team is starting to gel and get results, that belief is there, there is an outside chance. I don’t think it is at the level where it was six to eight months ago, where they weren't going to go up, now there is a chance.
“I would be very surprised if it isn’t this year, then next year they can compete to be in the top two. Right now they believe they can be in the top six, that’s their belief, but if they don’t go up this season, then by this time next year, they will believe that they can be in the top two.”
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