When the FA Cup draw confirmed Chelsea would travel to the Racecourse this March, Ryan Reynolds struggled for words. An \u201cooo\u201d slipped out while Jackman reminded him that this was exactly the type of draw he wanted: a big Premier League side travelling to Wrexham\u2019s Racecourse home. After confirming the tie would be on Welsh soil, Reynolds paused and finished the clip with one question: \u201cWhat the f—?\u201d<\/p>\n
That moment underscored how much has changed at Wrexham since the two clubs met in a pre-season friendly in the summer of 2023. At that time the Red Dragons had just finished top of England\u2019s fifth tier when they took on Chelsea in North Carolina. Two-and-a-half years later, only one of Wrexham\u2019s starting XI from that friendly still plays for the club. Thomas O\u2019Connor has only recently returned to the Racecourse after spending the first half of the current campaign on loan at Peterborough United.<\/p>\n
Player movement has been extensive and, for some, painful. Fan favourite Elliot Lee joined Doncaster Rovers in February after pushing for a new club where he could actually get some game time. Others have been moved on. Paul Mullin finished as Wrexham\u2019s top scorer in three separate seasons but couldn\u2019t step up to the level of League One last season. He was not afforded the chance to try his luck in the Championship and bitterly refused to accept his exile.<\/p>\n
Current status of players from that friendly:<\/p>\n
Player \u2014 Current Club
\nBen Foster \u2014 Retired
\nBen Tozer \u2014 Retired
\nThomas O\u2019Connor \u2014 Wrexham
\nEoghan O\u2019Connell \u2014 Barnsley
\nElliot Lee \u2014 Doncaster Rovers
\nJames Jones \u2014 Burton Albion
\nAndrew Cannon \u2014 Burton Albion (on loan from Wrexham)
\nJacob Mendy \u2014 Peterborough United
\nAnthony Forde \u2014 Altrincham
\nPaul Mullin \u2014 Bradford City (on loan from Wrexham)
\nSam Dalby \u2014 Bolton Wanderers<\/p>\n
Chelsea have experienced turnover of their own since that 5\u20130 friendly win. All four of their goalscorers on the day have since left the club. Ian Maatsen nabbed a brace against Wrexham but would only last six more months before joining Borussia Dortmund on loan ahead of a permanent move to Aston Villa. Conor Gallagher would be shipped off to Atl\u00e9tico Madrid in 2024 while Christopher Nkunku belatedly extricated himself from Stamford Bridge last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reynolds’s reaction underlined Wrexham’s transformation since their 2023 friendly with Chelsea tie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1421],"tags":[1089,1476],"class_list":["post-6918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-wrexham","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-fa-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}