SHAUN HARVEY says tweaking Wrexham's pre-season schedule - both at home and in north America - laid the foundations for Wrexham's successful start to the League One campaign.
Phil Parkinson's back-to-back promotion winners have hit the ground running on the club's return to the third tier for the first time in 19 years and are currently second with 20 points from the opening 10 fixtures.
The Reds have adjusted well to life at a higher level and director Harvey says getting he pre-season programme right has made a huge difference.
As part of the build up to the 2023-24 League Two season, Wrexham embarked on a four-game tour to America but returned just a week before the first game which ended in a 5-3 home defeat to MK Dons, and the slow start continued.
This summer, Wrexham headed back from the three-match north America tour with longer to prepare for the first league fixture and also managed to fit in a pre-season friendly at home to Fleetwood Town.
Harvey says that game against the Cod Army was crucial for the players to get the trip across the pond out of the system, and that is backed up by the flying start made by the Reds when the competitive football began.
"We learnt the lessons of the first USA tour which was a massive success in its our right but we all recognised that you can do things better," said Harvey.
"We found the right balance between the benefits of going to north America to continue the development of the club from a commercial perspective, with the need to ensure that we prepared and got ourselves ready for the start of the season.
"Where we are today is testimony to the fact that was better.
"The key difference in pre-season was the desire to have a domestic friendly fixture back at The Racecourse before the season started.
"In the Fleetwood fixture, you could see an element of getting rustiness and travel out of the system, and to do that in a pre-season friendly rather than the first league game of the season, I think that has helped shape those first 10 games of the season in a big way."
Harvey praised Parkinson, his staff and players for quickly acclimatising to life in a higher division and says being able to use Colliers Park on a regular basis for training sessions has been hugely beneficial.
"We have now played 10 games which most people take as the minimum that you should have played before you start drawing any kind of idea as to what the future might hold, and we find ourselves sitting in second place in the league with six wins and only two defeats," added Harvey.
"You would take that, absolutely.
"When you look at how we have got here, it is obviously down to the players because they are the ones that deliver the results, and Phil and his coaching staff for getting them into a position.
"The fact we have been able to use Colliers Park on a regular basis for pre-season training whilst we have been in this country has also had a positive impact, but the work was done by everybody during pre-season."
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