Wrexham hit four past Preston to ease pressure on Parkinson
Wrexham beat Preston North End 4-1 in the Championship at the Racecourse Ground on Saturday 17 October. BBC Sport
The Championship is the second tier of English football, one step below the Premier League. Wrexham needed this result. They had lost 2-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion in their previous game.
Joe Worrall and Ben Whiteman gave Wrexham a 2-1 lead at half-time. Both strikes were their first goals for the club. Sam Smith and Kieffer Moore then scored in the second half to turn a tight game into a clear win.
Preston started the day bottom of the table. They finished it still searching for a way out. For Wrexham, the scoreline eased the pressure on manager Phil Parkinson, according to match reporting from Sky Sports.
Parkinson said his players had to "block everything out" to deliver that performance. He was delighted with their reaction after the West Brom defeat, as reported by the Irish News. Noise grows quickly around a losing team. His answer was focus, work rate and goals from across the side.
He spoke to BBC Radio Wales Sport after the game. He pointed out he has now managed more than 1,000 matches. That is a rare landmark in the game, and it showed in how he handled a difficult week.
Wrexham did it without three injured players. Max Cleworth, Nathan Broadhead and Dan Sheaf were all sidelined. Parkinson had to shuffle his team and ask others to step up. Worrall and Whiteman did exactly that with their first goals, while Smith and Moore kept the second half moving in one direction.
Whiteman was central to the story. The midfielder had said before the match that the recent three-week international break was more difficult than he first imagined. Players often lose rhythm during a long pause in fixtures, and Wrexham had felt flat against West Brom. This time he played with energy and capped it with a goal.
What makes this stand out is the spread of the scoring. Four different names on the scoresheet lifts a whole squad. It gives supporters in the stands something shared to carry home, and it gives a manager options for the weeks ahead. One result does not settle a season. But a 4-1 home win, after a defeat, changes the sound of a stadium.
