"IT is in my mind that I need to do this."

Those are the words of Jay Harris who came agonisingly close to achieving promotion with Wrexham but remains as hungry as ever to be a success with the Reds.

During his first spell at The Racecourse, Harris played an integral part in Wrexham reaching the play-offs three years in a row, with the Reds pipped to the title by Fleetwood despite amassing a club record 98 points in 2012, and losing in the final to Newport County 12 months later.

But Wrexham swapped a promotion push for a relegation dogfight last season, eventually finishing one point above the drop zone when the campaign was ended early because of the coronavirus crisis.

Having returned to the club in January for a second stint, Harris knows supporters won't accept a repeat of that woeful 2019-20 when Wrexham kick-off a 13th season in non-league - and neither will the players.

"We have to improve on last season," said Harris.

"The players won't accept it, the gaffer definitely won't accept it and the fans are not going to accept what happened last year, and rightly so.

"The club deserves better and the personnel that are here should be doing better so we have got to massively improve on last year."

Harris, who clinched promotion back to the Football League with Tranmere Rovers in 2018, wants a repeat of that success story with Wrexham.

"Thirteen years is a very long time," said Harris. "Whether we deserve it or not, it has happened and it is reality so we need to do something about that.

"I have been so close with this club and for me, promotion would be a personal achievement.

"It never happened eight, nine years ago so it is in my mind that I need to do this."

Former team-mate Keates is charged with reviving Wrexham's fortunes and the Reds' boss has already recruited Jamie Reckford, Elliott Durrell and Jordan Ponticelli.

Harris admits it is a big season coming up for the Racecourse outfit.

"The lads already here obviously don't want a repeat of what happened last season and the players coming in definitely don't want a repeat of that," said Harris.

"Lads like Recks and Elliott have had success so they will want to mimic what they have done previously, not be a mid-table or bottom of the table side.

"I have been here before and Wrexham need to get out of this league.

"I know it has been a long time but it is coming to the point where it is crunch time and it needs to happen sooner rather than later because you don't know what is around the corner, especially with the current climate.

"You have only got to look at clubs like Wigan who are dropping down and have got money issues.

"We can't go through that so how we do that is we turn the bad run of results on the pitch and the money comes in, and hopefully promotion.

"As a collective - team, fans, players, management and staff - we all need to pull together in the same direction and go for what we all want to achieve which is promotion."