Letter from America

... or from Flint to Foster City (or thereabouts)

Welcome to another less than enthralling Letter from America - the column that fills in a few spare inches of space after the letters page.

Since my last letter I've been back to Britain, taken in a game, and returned to California again, although I'll be back at Christmas for three weeks where I can take in another four or five games. The game that I saw during my brief visit to Britain was Stoke at home. Everything was right about this game apart from the result. Since it was the first match I'd seen since last season, I'd say Wrexham's standard of play has definitely gone up, although it's dangerous to make sweeping statements after only seeing one game. 

However, to me the speed of play seems to be greater than last year, and the accuracy of the passing seems to have improved too. I was impressed with the short, sharp passing, and the team always appeared to be trying to do the right thing. It's a pity that Opta aren't still doing the Stats for Nationwide League Division 2 this season because I'm sure Wrexham's pass-completion rate has gone up. Regarding the players in the side, well, I know what Ferguson can do from last season, so it was new signing Emad Bouanane who caught my eye for the right reasons and also the wrong reasons. In fact, going forward in that game I was more impressed with Emad than I was with Carlos Edwards. That wasn't to say that I thought Carlos had a poor game; in fact he had a good game. It was just that there's something enigmatic about Emad. I was sitting in the Sainsbury's Stand so I got to see close-up (first-half especially) Emad taking players on down the wing. He looks very exciting.

However, during the Stoke game his defending at times can leave a little bit to be desired, especially when he sent a Stokie sprawling for the penalty. Maybe when Hardy is fully recovered Emad will convert to an out-and-out winger. It would be a tricky decision to make for Flynn as Wrexham seem to have a glut of decent midfielders at the moment: Ferguson, Barrett, a rejuvenated Chalk, Owen, Gibson, Edwards, Blackwood, Williams, and Thomas, Russell and Phillips when they're back from injury. We're not short of good midfielders at the moment! I thought overall in the Stoke game Wrexham deserved a share of the points, especially because of the way they controlled the match for most of the second half. But unfortunately they couldn't capitalise on a couple of good chances. Sam (when he came on) and Killen looked lively and Faulconbridge worked hard too. Based on that one performance, if Stoke are going to be there or thereabouts for the play-offs, so can Wrexham theoretically. 

There was no way Stoke were miles better than Wrexham that Saturday - I thought Wrexham matched them well - and a full-strength Wrexham side should be able to run them much closer. If we are no more than nine points off the play-offs at Christmas I'll still be optimistic about our chances of a play-off place, even though, to me, finishing anywhere in the top half of the table is a major achievement for a club of Wrexham's size. We're definitely going in the right direction.

Cheers

Gareth Collins