Key events
HALF TIME: Wrexham 1-0 Swansea City
A capsule review of the first half, courtesy of Rob Mac: “Giddy up!”
45 min +2: Rathbone hassles Stamenic, facing his own goal, into the concession of a corner. O’Brien sends the set piece long. Doyle rises highest at the far post, and surely has to score, but sends his header across the face of goal and out. A huge chance to double Wrexham’s lead!
45 min: Kabore dribbles hard down the right, using Tymon as a shield. At the edge of the box, he attempts an outside-of-foot curler towards the top left. Always wide and high, but a fine effort nonetheless. There will be one minute of additional time.
43 min: Swansea with a free kick out on the right. Nunes fails to beat the first man. Wrexham half clear. Ronald swings in from the same flank. Vipotnik stoops by the near post, and flashes a header wide.
41 min: Thomason passes infield from the left. A ricochet nearly tees up Broadhead to the left of the D … but not quite. Swansea aren’t doing a particularly good job in locating Broadhead down this channel. He’s been impressively slippery.
39 min: Kabore jinks his way down the right, having taken control of a sweeping O’Brien pass, and wins a corner. O’Brien takes the set piece, looping it to the far stick. Another corner’s won. Wrexham play it short, and nearly balls it up, but Swansea only half clear. Kabore races down the right again, and his fierce low cross only just evades Smith in the middle. A 2-0 scoreline would seriously flatter Wrexham, but they’ve come real close to it.
37 min: Swansea have responded well to falling behind. They’re hogging possession again, probing hither and yon. “Swansea could still sneak into the playoffs,” insists Julian Menz. “As someone of a certain age who remembers the 70s/80s/90s, I bet the Met would absolutely love the prospect of policing Millwall v Swansea at Wembley. Regarding just how far the game has come, I have no worries taking my 10-year-old daughter to a game now. I’d give that one a swerve though.”
35 min: More heroics from Okonkwo, who blocks a point-blank prod by Burgess, the ball having come in from the right. Turns out three Swansea players were offside, and the flag goes up, but the keeper wasn’t to know that. He’s doing a good job in making up for that costly mistake in Swansea last December.
34 min: Galbraith scampers after a cute Nunes flick down the left, his low cross deflected and nearly sneaking into the bottom left. Just a corner, which is dealt with well by Okonkwo.
32 min: A replay of Broadhead’s goal, Wrexham’s one shot on target so far. It was a lovely touch to get past Burgess, and a decent finish from the striker’s point of view. Vigouroux might wonder whether he could have done better, though, the ball going straight through him.
30 min: Nunes swings into the Wrexham box from the right. Cabango heads a decent chance over from six yards. Time for Ryan Reynolds to dip once more into his big book of goalkeeping facts: “I love that Arthur Okonkwo is eight foot two.”
29 min: That goal has changed the atmosphere at the Racecourse. The home fans had fallen a little quiet just before it, with Swansea looking the more likely to open the scoring. But here we are.
27 min: That opening goal, which came against the run of play, was celebrated party-hearty by the Hollywood pair. Turns out Ryan Reynolds’ daughter was in the restroom when the goal went in, so he tells her to stay in there for the remainder of the game. From California to north Wales, the importance of sporting superstitions are universal.
GOAL! Wrexham 1-0 Swansea City (Broadhead 25)
Wrexham work the ball from right to left. Four players involved. Then Broadhead is sent into the box down the channel by Doyle. Broadhead takes a touch to ghost past Burgess, opens his body, then slots diagonally across Vigouroux and into the bottom right!
23 min: That was a hell of a pass forward by Franco to split Wrexham apart. Well worthy of an assist, but he’s not going to get one. Meanwhile Ryan Reynolds celebrates his keeper’s save. “Ladies and gentlemen, Arthur Lanyard Okonkwo. That’s not his middle name, I’ve just made it up.”
21 min: Swansea should be leading. Vipotnik chases after a long pass down the middle. He’s clear of the Wrexham defence. He opens his body and steers a shot towards the bottom right. Okonkwo gets down to palm away with a strong hand. Great save, though he should never have been allowed to make it. Vitpotnik wears the pained look of a man who knows he should have done so much better.
19 min: Hyam and Vipotnik wrestle just inside the Wrexham box. The striker goes over, and claims a penalty. You’ve seen spot kicks given for less, but the referee shows no interest whatsoever. The hosts get away with a big one there.
17 min: Thomason overhits a cross from the left. Goal kick. Rob Mac cheers nonetheless. “Perception is an important part of the spot … I thought that was going into the right-hand portion of the net, and it wasn’t even close.
16 min: A low cross into the Wrexham box from the Swansea right. Neither Vipotnik nor Franco is able to control the ball on the edge of the area. Had they done so, they’d have had a workable shooting opportunity.
14 min: Vyner gets stuck into a challenge, which appeals to Ryan Reynolds’ baser instincts. Coos of encouragement. He wants Wrexham to get stuck in. “If you’re built like Callum Doyle, you’re gonna want to be physical.”
12 min: A pocket of space for Rathbone, 25 yards out, just to the left of centre. He slices horribly wide left, then falls over, claiming a foul that never happened. Rob and Ryan discuss the art of going down, looking for a cheap free kick, and suggest putting on an acting masterclass. “You’ve gotta sell it, real tears,” says Reynolds, before getting dark: “The guy last week with the compound fracture sold it.”
10 min: Kabore crosses from the right. Broadhead steers a header towards the top right, and Vigouroux claws it out. Nothing comes of the subsequent corner. It’s been a good end-to-end start, the Swans edging it.
8 min: Franco nearly gets on the end of a wedged pass down the right. Then Nunes glides down the left and floats a cross that pings off the top of the crossbar and away. Turns out it had sailed out for a goal kick beforehand, but I’m not sure Okonkwo had that situation under control. “What was that?!” splutters Reynolds, incredulity the top note, as he’d just beforehand been speaking of his dream of Wrexham leading 5-0 already.
6 min: Swansea have started the stronger. Ronald advances down the right again but can’t find Vipotnik in the middle with his cross.
5 min: Reynolds compares Kieffer Moore, missing through injury, to Errol Flynn. You can take the actor out of la-la land, etc.
4 min: Vyner dinks a cross in from the right. “Goal!” shouts Reynolds, an involuntary reaction as the ball is headed clear by the Swansea defence.
2 min: … and now Ronald makes a nuisance of himself down the same channel, but can’t keep the ball in play. Goal kick. Rob Mac has already used the word “purgatory”.
33 secs: “Uh-oh,” worries Ryan Reynolds, as Franco bursts into space down the Swansea inside-right channel. Rob Mac audibly sucks his teeth with anxiety. The commentary unashamedly Wrexham-focussed. Their fears are unfounded as Franco rolls a weak shot towards the bottom right.
Wrexham get the ball rolling. “There’s going to be a lot of goals,” says Rob Mac. The first rule of football commentary, Do Not Tempt Fate, recklessly kicked to touch from the get-go.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac take to the mic on Sky Sports Football. They’ve got regular presenter David Prutton alongside them during the build-up, which seems a bit of a cop out, but presumably he’ll be taking a back seat soon enough. Meanwhile, the teams are out! Wrexham in red, Swansea in white. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes. “I wish Snoop Dogg all the best in his investment in Swansea City,” begins Peter Oh. “I hope he’ll simply appreciate the beauty and atmosphere of the game rather than get caught up in statistics and metrics. Nuthin’ but an xG Thang just wouldn’t be as good as the original.”
Wrexham make two changes to the starting XI after Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to Hull. Issa Kabore and Ollie Rathbone replace Ryan Longman and Josh Windass, who both drop to the bench.
Swansea also make two changes to their starting line-up, following their 2-1 victory at Portsmouth. Marko Stamenic and Gustavo Nunes replace Jay Fulton and Eom Ji-sung, who are benched.
Here’s what the Championship table looks like going into this game. Wrexham won’t be going anywhere tonight, no matter what happens, though they can of course consolidate their position in the play-off places. Swansea can catapult themselves up to seventh with a win.
Swansea won the reverse fixture 2-1 back in December. Wrexham goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo won’t have fond memories, spilling the ball at the feet of Adam Idah in the last minute, Idah slotting the winner from a yard out. That was the first time the teams had met in any competition since the 2002-03 season, when Wrexham won this fixture 4-0. In fact Wrexham’s form in this fixture is outstanding: they’ve hosted the Swans on 15 previous occasions in the Football League, winning ten and drawing four of them. However there is hope for Swansea, as Phil Parkinson has never beaten them as a manager, losing the last four meetings on the bounce. Rob, Ryan, feel free to take all of that if there’s any dead air to fill.
The teams
Wrexham: Okonkwo, Cleworth, Hyam, Doyle, Kabore, Vyner, Rathbone, O’Brien, Thomason, Smith, Broadhead.
Subs: Ward, Brunt, Keillor-Dunn, Windass, Cadamarteri, Rodriguez, Scarr, Barnett, Longman.
Swansea City: Vigouroux, Key, Cabango, Burgess, Tymon, Goncalo Franco, Stamenic, Galbraith, Ronald, Vipotnik, Nunes Gomes.
Subs: Fisher, Fulton, Widell, Yalcouye, Eom, Samuels-Smith, Cullen, Walta, Ward.
Referee: Tom Nield (West Yorkshire)
Swansea head coach Vitor Matos speaks to Sky. “It’s been a good process step by step, trying to build something we’ll all be proud of … that’s what we’ll try to show here tonight … concentration is really important … a mix of pretty control with the ball but at the same time mentality and character … we understand that each game is like a final … a good feeling around the club … it is a relentless league … there are still a lot of games to come.”
Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson talks to Sky. “It’s business as usual for us … you have to embrace it [the outside noise] … the emotion of the Chelsea [FA Cup] game obviously takes a bit out of you … this is a huge game tonight … a Welsh derby … a chance to cement ourselves in the top six … tonight is about taking care of our own business.”
The Wrexham co-chairmen Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds are going to call the plays commentate on this game tonight for Sky Sports. Reynolds is all too aware that this gig differs significantly from the day job: “One take, that’s all we get.” Mac adds: “I am terrified.” We might as well listen in, but please don’t worry about flitting between such distinct genres and disciplines, gentlemen: if Ally McCoist can hold his own on the silver screen with Robert Duvall, you’ve surely got this.
Preamble
This is ostensibly an affair between two Welsh concerns: Wrecsam ac Dinas Abertawe. But it’s not just that, is it. It’s Philadelphia versus California. It’s X-Men versus G-funk. It’s Don’t Forget versus Drop It Like It’s Hot. It’s Fight Milk versus Chandon. Rob Mac, Ryan Reynolds and Snoop Dogg have changed everything. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT. Mae ymlaen!
