Midfielder Jamie Tolley is confident Wrexham can benefit from his burning desire to prove the doubters wrong.

Having burst onto the scene with Shrewsbury ten years ago, Tolley went on to become the youngest player in the club’s history and subsequently made over 150 appearances, as well as winning 12 caps for Wales’ under 21s.

However, things started to turn sour for Tolley and he allowed his contract to expire before joining Macclesfield and later Hereford, where he played just 10 games.

The 27-year-old has endured a tough time of late but remains confident that he can rebuild his career at Wrexham under Dean Saunders.

“It’s been going well,” he said. “I’ve been working hard to get myself a place in the team, to prove my fitness and prove some doubters I have had wrong. That it what I want to do.

“I have proved that in the games I have played, I am grateful and hopefully I can prove that again.

“When I was at Shrewsbury I was young and playing well and moves didn’t come off that people had told me were coming off. I got messed about around the scenes which the fans or anyone else don’t see.

“People were just reading me wrongly, I am older now though and I want to prove that I want to play football.

“You come in every day, you train and you work hard and here you work twice as hard because we are in Sundays so it is a seven day week which most clubs don’t do.

“I have had doubters over the years but the gaffer knows that I just want to play football. I have proved that in the games that I have played, I am grateful and hopefully I can prove that again.

“The biggest thing really is when your team mates want you in the team and I am pleased that they want me to play and it makes me feel good and hopefully I can do a job for them.”

Tolley started the first eight games of the campaign on the bench before forcing his way into the starting XI for the trip to Kettering and went on to feature in the next five matches, scoring in the 4-0 success over Histon.

That run of starts only came to an end as a result of a damaged wrist during the draw with Fleetwood, an injury that left him fearing the worst.

“Obviously when I went off against Fleetwood on the Tuesday I feared the worst because I have done this wrist a few times and it is a bit of a pain,” he said.

“I did it three years ago and I did it quite badly. I have had two operations on it and when I first did it I thought I had done something bad but thankfully it was just the initial pain and that has worn off now.

“Thank God nothing is too severe with it and I was just glad to be involved in some of the game.

“Hopefully I can get back in the team and start playing well again. Obviously if I can get back in and we can start winning games it will be brilliant for everyone.”

Prior to his injury he was forging an influential partnership with Dean Keates and Jay Harris in the centre of the pitch and Tolley believes the trio have a good understanding.

“It was working well with the three, Keatsy was sitting and me and Jay can get forward at will because we know he will sit there, he reads the game so well,” he said.

“Obviously I enjoy scoring goals, that is what everyone wants to do and I have tried to get that into my game this year. I have one already, I could have had a couple more but the more I play the more I will score.

“From talking to people around the club there wasn’t enough goals scored last year and we have the right people to score them. Everything just needs to knit together.”

- Wrexham reserves return to league action this evening as they travel to Prenton Park to face Tranmere Rovers, (7.30pm).