Phil Parkinson faces a choice on his Wrexham team after a record-breaking January transfer window.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, co-owners, approved an unprecedented spending spree on one player when the club breached the £1 million barrier to sign Reading striker Sam Smith.
The League One promotion-chasing side then added Premier League veteran Jay Rodriguez to their front line.
Both followed the arrival of Hull City wideman Ryan Longman to bolster Parkinson’s squad and their quest for a remarkable third consecutive promotion season.
However, Parkinson is now caught in a bind due to English Football League (EFL) squad rules.
After the transfer window closes, teams must submit squads for registration, with only those players named eligible to play in league fixtures.
And in the lower two divisions, they can only name up to 22 players on the list.
That excludes goalkeepers and players who qualified for under-21 football at the beginning of the year, such as Seb Revan and Modou Faal, as well as local youth product Harry Ashfield, 18, who scored his first senior goal in Tuesday’s EFL Trophy victory over Port Vale.
However, as evidenced by the ten changes made at Vale Park, Wrexham still have an excess of squad members, with 23 senior pros – forcing one to drop out.
It is not the first time Wrexham has faced such a dilemma, with Billy Waters missing out last season and Anthony Forde not named at the start of the current campaign, explaining why he was only permitted to feature in EFL Trophy fixtures before his release from his contract on deadline day.
Wrexham made some room for midfielder James Jones’ move to Burton, but there were no other notable departures in the final days of the window.
That’s despite interest in frontman Ollie Palmer, who has stated that he wants to stay at the Racecourse despite Wrexham having seven strikers.
Parkinson can still add free agents to his roster after the window closes, as was the case when midfielder Matty James was signed.
However, the former Leicester City player must now be one of the 22, forcing Parkinson to pick which player will be left out of the squad tasked with beating Wycombe Wanderers to the third tier’s automatic promotion spots.
