Welcome to Wrexham is a great story but want to write our ending

PIERCE SWEENEY IS THE CLUB CAPTAIN OF EXETER CITY FC

With matches away at upwardly mobile Wrexham on Saturday and at home to league leaders Birmingham on Tuesday, we’ve got a big few days coming up.

While I’m looking forward to my first visit to the Racecourse Ground and understand why so many of our fans are excited to be taking on the Welsh side, I can’t pretend it was the first game I looked for when the fixtures were published back in June.

Of course, the Red Dragons’ renaissance under Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney is a great story and, like everyone else, I’ve enjoyed a few episodes of the Disney documentary Welcome to Wrexham.

At the same time, as far as I’m concerned, our game against Birmingham at St Andrews in mid-January is, by some distance, the one I’m most looking forward to.

Be that as it may, Phil Parkinson’s side have acclimatised well to life in League One and we’ll have to be somewhere near our best if we’re to bag a fourth away win of the season. It won’t much help that we’ll be without Ryan Woods, who is suspended having been sent off against Lincoln at the weekend. However, this is why you have a squad and Woodsy’s misfortune will present someone else with an opportunity to shine.

In the run-up to Saturday’s game there will be much speculation who that might be and, truth be told, as I write this on Tuesday morning, I have no more idea than your average punter on ExeWeb. Inevitably, some will speculate that Kevin McDonald, who signed a short-term contract with us last week, or Jake Richards, might get the nod but, frankly, I’d be a little surprised were either to happen.

Kevin hasn’t started a game for some time and talented as Jake undoubtedly is it would be a big ask to throw him into the starting XI against Wrexham or Birmingham. At this juncture, I’m not sure whether there’s any prospect of Reece Cole featuring any time soon but, regardless, we still have the likes of Ed Francis, Jack McMillan, and Caleb Watts – all of whom are very capable of doing a job at centre-mid.

The big games keep coming at the minute and little more than 72 hours after our trip to North Wales, our rearranged fixture with Birmingham will be taking place under the floodlights at St James’s Park. With the Blues flying high at the top of the league, and Jay Stansfield returning to Exeter for the first time since his hat-trick for us against Morecambe, it promises to be quite an occasion.

As I’ve said before, we look to win all our home games, and it will be no different on Tuesday. At the same time, Birmingham are a huge club, whose playing budget dwarfs ours, so while it would be fantastic were we able to bag all three points, this is one home game where you wouldn’t be too disappointed with a draw.

Likewise, while we’d have loved to have beaten Lincoln at SJP on Saturday, in the cold light of day, it probably goes down as a point gained rather than two points dropped. The Imps have lost just one away game in this calendar year and, what’s more, someone told me they’ve accumulated more points than pretty much any other EFL club in 2024. When you add in that we were without Josh Magennis and Ilmari Niskanen, who were away on international duty but have been two of our best players over recent weeks, I guess a 0-0 draw isn’t too bad.

For what it’s worth, I thought we shaded the first half, without creating too many real goalscoring opportunities. However, having made a couple of substitutions, Lincoln, who are a big, strong, physical unit, really stepped it up after the interval and with better finishing could have nicked all three points.

In any case, while we had to settle for a share of the spoils on this occasion, there were still plenty of positives to take from the game, including an incredible ninth clean sheet of the season and decent performances from Vinny Harper, on his first start since the Rotherham game on the opening day, and Caleb, who hadn’t featured since getting sent off at Leyton Orient at the beginning of October.

Unfortunately, I have to say I wasn’t much impressed by the referee, Thomas Parsons. I can’t remember coming across him before, but I couldn’t help thinking he quite enjoyed being the centre of attention in front of the Sky Sports cameras. Certainly, I thought he made more than a few questionable shouts and that our assistant manager Dave Perkins could consider himself unlucky to get a straight red card for holding on to the ball after one of the Lincoln coaching staff, who went unpunished, had strayed into our technical area.

Some of you may have glimpsed former Exeter loanee Kane Wilson, who’s now at Derby, watching the Lincoln game from the IP Office Main Stand. Kane loved his time at SJP, since when the two of us have remained big pals, and, with him, his partner and their two children enjoying a short break in Torquay, jumped at the chance to come along on Saturday – it was just a shame he didn’t get to see an Exeter win.

Speaking of former teammates, it was great to see Ollie Watkins get a start in England’s game against Greece last Thursday and better still to see him open the scoring. I only hope that at some point we get to see Ollie and Harry Kane playing together, as I fancy they’d make a fantastic pairing – touch wood Thomas Tuchel will think similarly and give it a go!

Regardless of that, with no disrespect to Aston Villa, I can imagine some top-top clubs being after Ollie in the summer. I know he’s a big Arsenal supporter and it seems to me the Gunners are crying out for a player like him!

Another former Grecians teammate, Dara O’Shea, enjoyed rather more mixed fortunes over the international break, with the Republic of Ireland beating Finland 1-0 last Thursday before crashing to a 5-0 defeat against England on Sunday. Nevertheless, much like Ollie, Dara has gone on to forge a fantastic career for himself since spending the 2018-19 season on loan at Exeter.

It was clear back then that Dara had talent in abundance and absolutely the right attitude and I’m not at all surprised that he’s gone on to become a regular in the Premier League and for his country.

It’s the turn of El Presidente, Julian Tagg, to pick up the baton next week, so I’ll look forward to catching up with you at the beginning of next month to reflect on our games against Wrexham, Birmingham, and Chesterfield in the second round of the FA Cup on November 30.