Why Wrexham's £19m striker transfer pursuit is cause for concern for rest of the Championship

Wrexham have been linked with a £19 million transfer for a new centre-forward, with the club reported to have launched a bid for Angers striker Sidiki Cherif.

A few years ago that might have raised our eyebrows, but now it feels a bit more like…well, yeah. Of course they have. The fact that Wrexham are now a very wealthy club is not particularly news at this point.

Their presentation as a fairytale story is true for them and their fans. Every other club in the country would love something similar to happen to their club.

Wrexham's big-money transfer move is the next logical step

So we’re not taking anything away from Wrexham fans when we say that it’s also nonsense. The cuddly veneer put on the club by the Disney+ cameras and their charismatic owners does not disguise the fact that Wrexham have spent their way into this position.

We’re not saying that to be cynical or to have a moan about modern football. It’s over 30 years since Blackburn Rovers enjoyed a similar rise under Jack Walker, who took over a second-tier club in 1991 and delivered the Premier League trophy just four years later by spending big on a proven title-winning manager and an expensively-assembled squad with Alan Shearer as its star.

That’s at least half a lifetime for most of you reading this – more than a lifetime, for some. Wrexham’s rise does nothing to change the football firmament other than showing the way new media can be used to significantly boost a club’s marketing footprint.

The thing about Wrexham is that there are tonnes of clubs up and down the country, particularly in the Championship and even in League One now, for whom money is no real object beyond the limitations of the financial regulations – and those rules are less onerous from the third tier down than they are in the Championship and Premier League.

These are the clubs Wrexham have increasingly competed against as they have risen up the pyramid, and yet they have still managed to succeed because they are also competent.

This season’s Championship is littered with teams who have had no shortage of money to spend compared with their contemporaries, and yet they’re struggling anyway.

Leicester, Southampton, Sheffield United, West Brom, Swansea and Norwich are all in the bottom half of the table at the moment, despite all having big ambitions and the relative financial might required to back them up. Luton were relegated last year straight off the back of coming down from the Premier League

What those clubs have in common is that they are all in a state of identity crisis after (variously speaking) bruising relegations, failed promotion campaigns, takeovers, disastrous managerial changes, or any combination of the above.

Now look at the top six. Coventry, Middlesbrough, Ipswich, Hull, Millwall and Preston may not be short of a bob or two themselves, but they all know exactly what they are and where their limitations are, and have learned how to play to their strengths.

Wrexham took a bit of time to find their feet this season. They started in poor-to-middling form, with two wins, four draws and four defeats from their first ten Championship games.

But Phil Parkinson’s well-organised system has helped them find stability and an improvement in results. Wrexham have lost just three of their past 18 league outings and have risen from 18th to 9th.

They are still drawing too many games, though - seven of their past 18, the most of any side in the division over that time. If they hadn't had that slow start, that would be fine; in the same timespan, they’ve been the third-best side in the Championship behind Ipswich and Coventry.

But as it is, Wrexham have a little bit of ground to make up before they can feel confident that their current standing just two points outside the promotion places will turn into a sustained assault on achieving yet another promotion.

The best way to do that is to complement their structured, hard-working side with a bit more quality – and thus they find themselves shopping at the top end of the Championship market for a forward who can give them that.

Eight-figure transfer fees are nothing new at this level. Burnley, Sheffield United, Leeds, Luton, Norwich and Ipswich have all splashed out sums in or around that region over the past few years, while Birmingham annihilated the League One transfer record with their move for Jay Stansfield before coming up alongside Wrexham.

So...if you have the money, why not spend it?

The key, as ever, is spending it well – and Wrexham have quite simply been better at that than most.