Dean Saunders Triggering the Wrexham Revival

It’s 11:30 a.m. on the 27th of September and Wrexham fans are waking up on the eve of the club's vital league game against Torquay United.

The day is filled with hope, expectation, and amongst anything else, nerves.

The club are taking on the Blue Square Premier’s in-form club, and another former football league club side.

The duo’s profile almost suggests they are both lost within the maze that is the football pyramid.

The season hadn’t started ideally for the newly relegated club.

Manager Brian Little had guided the club to four wins in their opening 11 games, but defeats at the likes of York City and Grays Athletic had overshadowed what had been a solid if not spectacular start for the robins.

Today’s home game with Torquay United was another chance for Little’s side to prove themselves against one of the promotion favourites.

The Gulls went into the game off the back of five successive wins, and were in the middle of what turned out to be the club's longest-ever unbeaten run.

With the fans mulling around the famous Racecourse Ground, news filtered through that Little, after 32 games in charge, had been relinquished of his position, by the infamous "mutual consent."

Now no one could doubt Little hadn’t had the best of times at Wrexham, he’d only won just seven games since his arrival.

The fans had started to turn on the former Aston Villa man and his negative style of football, so although the fans got what they wanted with his departure, the timing of just a few hours before a game wasn’t the best way of going about the sacking.

But the club moved on, and after drawing 1-1 with Torquay, the club appointed former Derby and Nottingham Forest Striker Dean Saunders as the new manager.

The fans knew that after last season’s relegation, automatic promotion wasn’t realistic, as the club needed radical rebuilding.

But the non-league specialist squad that Brian Little assembled during his tenure, working in the Welshman’s favour and soon Saunders started to get the best out of his squad.

Saunders’s impact has been immediate, and after three wins in a row, which included a win at fellow relegated Mansfield, they followed it up with a win at Stevenage Borough, a sign that Saunders could perform at this level.

However, after a number of postponed games over the festive period, and a win over runaway leaders Burton Albion, Wrexham have got it all to do in the promotion race.

They lie in fifth in the league, level on points with Torquay and just a point behind the teams who occupy the playoff places, Stevenage and Cambridge United.

Saunders knows he has a huge task to take the robins into the football league, but with plenty of games to go, and games in hand, their fortunes are in their own hands.

With the pressure now on to produce at the other end of the table, will the former Welsh striker come through for Wrexham?