Wrexham suffered a massively disappointing season as they abjectly failed in their attempt of promotion after making the play-offs in the previous two seasons. The hopes were high that the Dragons will make the big step in this campaign after going very close in the previous one and there was little reason to expect such a swift downfall. Andy Morrell kept the core of his squad while bringing in decent players like Mark Carrington, David Artell and Andy Bishop. However, Chris Westwood proved to be a major loss in the close season and that soon showed as the lack of defensive options contributed to a very poor start of the season. The Dragons looked all over the place as a team right from the start, with Morrell forced to constantly chop and change due to injuries. They went six games without a win early in the season before briefly bouncing back strong with empathic wins over Luton and Gateshead in September. Yet, the team never really caught fire as the season went on and the defensive stodginess and midfield control that the team exercised in previous seasons was nowhere to be seen. Morrell was clearly getting frustrated at the lack of progress the team was showing as the weeks passed and his relative lack of managerial experience began to show. The Dragons remained firmly in the lower mid-table as the season reached its hallway stage and the manager had a proper go at his players in December after a particularly limp showing away at Luton’s second string that resulted in a 2:0 loss in the FA Trophy, with which the team conceded the trophy that they won so dramatically in the previous season. There was a brief improvement in form in the first month of 2014 and the rallying cries of a great play-off charge were coming from the players. However, home losses to Dartford and Barnet nipped that notion for good and Morrell decided to leave the club, on mutual agreement, at the end of February. It was a lost season already and the idea was go give the new manager time to assess the squad and prepare the team well for the next campaign. Billy Barr was put in caretaker charge in the meantime and he got off to an awful start with a 5:0 loss at Luton. The results under him were poor overall and he was denied the chance to stay on for next season. Instead, the overachieving Kevin Wilkin was prized away from Nuneaton and finished the season. He oversaw the final month of the season with little to note and the question marks are prevailing over the definite answers at the Welsh club ahead of next season. But they will certainly going from a weakened position compared to an year ago after losing all of their brilliant momentum, alongside a potentially very talented manager that lost his way a bit.
