Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson has slammed his players for not showing enough fight after losing their unbeaten home record.
The Red Dragons' hopes of automatic promotion suffered a major blow as they slumped to a 3-2 defeat to mid-table Stevenage at the Racecourse Ground on Tuesday night. Wrexham left themselves with a mammoth task after a poor first-half performance, which saw them fall two goals behind through strikes from Dan Kemp and Jamie Reid for the visitors.
Parkinson's side were booed off at half-time as the manager took action by making two substitutions after the break, with Steven Fletcher and Paul Mullin replacing Ollie Palmer and Matty James. Wrexham grabbed one back shortly before the hour mark after a shot by Ollie Rathbone was turned home by Mullin, but Jake Young added a third for Stevenage ten minutes later following some disastrous defending.
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A stoppage-time header from Max Cleworth was not enough to prevent Wrexham from losing their first game at home since March last year. Speaking after they squandered their 22-game unbeaten streak at the Racecourse, Parkinson took personal accountability but expressed anger at his side's performance, with only a handful of players spared from his fury.
He said: “I’ve got to look closely at myself because I take full responsibility for that, and I’ve prided myself on preparing teams to play well. For the majority of the time, we’ve done that, we’ve competed, and we’ve been strong and disciplined.
“Tonight, we were just too loose out of possession and weren’t good enough with the ball in the first half. When you concede soft goals like that, it can take the energy away from you.
“When you’re not really playing well, you’ve got to stand strong as a team, win headers, win second balls, block things, and there wasn’t enough fight, barring two or three players in the team tonight.”
The result saw Wrexham remain third in the League One table, losing ground on Birmingham City and Wycombe Wanderers in the automatic promotion spots. The Blues strengthened their chances of becoming champions after beating Huddersfield 1-0 away on Tuesday night, while the Chairboys grabbed a dramatic late win at home against Barnsley.
Wrexham's ambitions of achieving a remarkable third successive promotion have been well-backed by their Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Last week, the club forked out a reported £500,000 to beat Championship outfit Oxford United to the signature of Hull City winger Ryan Longman, who appeared off the bench against Stevenage.
Parkinson is now looking for a reaction from his players as they travel to face Crawley Town on Saturday afternoon. However, the 57-year-old said he would only pick players willing to battle for the cause as he faces some big selection calls.
Parkinson said: “We’ll look to respond, and we’ve got a bit of soul searching to do, because we’ve got a great record here. But that performance in the first half was not a reflection of what we’ve done over the last few years and what this club’s all about.
“I’ve got to look quickly at that, look at the reasons why, and make sure we pick a team at the weekend which is going to fight tooth and nail for the badge.”
