Wrexham

Kieffer Moore has led the line in Wrexham‘s two Championship fixtures with Sam Smith coming off the bench.

Williamson confirmed that they are working to give Parkinson more firepower.

He said: “There are probably 72 other clubs looking for the same shiny new striker, right?

“That’s the challenging one to find – the striker who is great with his feet, great with his head, great at hold-up play, great at finishing, is 6ft5ins and wants to move to Wrexham.

“That’s your £40m striker right there, but we have two great strikers on the pitch right now.

“We are comfortable with those two guys up top and what we need to just add is quality with a couple of different pieces on the pitch to give them the opportunity to score more goals.”

Wrexham host Birmingham on Friday, 28 August (20:00 BST) and travel to Millwall the day after the transfer window shuts.

Phil Parkinson bemoaned his team’s lack of ruthlessness – and the amount of stoppage time at the end of the game – after a 98th-minute equaliser denied Wrexham a Welsh derby victory at Cardiff City.

Parkinson’s side were on course to begin the new Championship campaign with a hard-fought win after Kieffer Moore’s third-minute goal at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Wrexham missed chances to extend their lead – and twice hit the woodwork – on a night when they carried greater threat than their hosts only to be denied a win when Rubin Colwill smashed in a free-kick in the last act of the game.

“We’ve had chances to kill the game off. We haven’t taken them, the keeper’s made saves, but we haven’t really made him make a top-class save,” Parkinson said.

“We knew we could give Cardiff problems and time and time again. We did and really in the cold light of day, the game should have been out of sight, but it wasn’t.”

While Parkinson suggested his side could have managed the closing minutes of the game better, there was frustration over the timing of Cardiff’s goal.

The fourth official’s board showed six minutes of added time, with George Dobson fouling Joel Colwill in the last of those minutes before Rubin Colwill seized the chance to equalise.

“I’m not quite sure where they got six minutes from – I’m looking forward to asking [the officials about] that,” Parkinson said.

“However, giving cheap free-kicks away at this level, you can get punished and that’s what cost us tonight.

“All we had to do was stay calm in that moment and we’d be talking about three points.”

The worldwide buzz is far from the norm, and certainly a far cry from the most recent league meeting between the duo on 22 March, 2002 – when goals from Scott Young, Peter Thorne and Danny Gabbidon earned the Bluebirds a 3-2 victory over the Red Dragons.

Just shy of 16,000 supporters were at Ninian Park on that occasion, and nearly double that amount will be in attendance at Cardiff City Stadium this time around, such is the anticipation for the fixture.

The game will also be beamed to fans around the world, particularly in North America where Wrexham have become a household name, thanks largely to the success of their Welcome to Wrexham documentary.

But current Cardiff head coach Barry-Murphy has zero interest in the fanfare brought to the party by the likes of Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac.

Barry-Murphy’s focus lies solely on satisfying the demands of those wearing blue in the Welsh capital, along with those of the club’s Malaysian owner Vincent Tan.

“The people in North America aren’t relevant to me,” said the Irishman.

“With all due respect, the people of Cardiff are the only ones that matter to us.

“And obviously the people in Malaysia are your boss, so we’re trying to impress him always and play for the supporters.”

Wrexham’s growth, however, has been nigh-on impossible to ignore.

Denis Smith – Wrexham boss for that 3-2 loss in the Welsh capital more than two decades ago – says having a team of the Red Dragons’ stature in the north of the country is vital.

“I understand the feeling for football in and around that area,” the 78-year-old said on BBC Radio Wales Sport.

“I had a great time there. I was there for five years. While I was there, we won things and got promotion, but we also had the problems.

“I was daft enough to go on the board so it cost me a lot of money, but it’s a great football club.

“The area wants football, Wales needs a club of Wrexham’s size in north Wales.”

After two seasons together at the bottom level, Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham were reunited – this time in the third tier – for a couple of seasons in the mid-1990s.

And now, after more than three decades, they are together again.

“Three Welsh teams in the Championship… it’s enormous for the country,” said Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson.

“There’s a mini-league going on [in Wales].”

Wrexham came out on top last season, finishing four places above Swansea in 11th.

Bookmakers make Parkinson’s men favourites to finish as Wales’ top club once more, with the Red Dragons tipped to push for a play-off place, Swansea in the middle of the pack and Cardiff among those with the longest promotion odds in the division.

Brian Barry-Murphy reckons his team are capable of surprising the doubters – though the Cardiff head coach brushed off questions about the fight to be Welsh football’s leading club before Monday’s mouthwatering curtain-raiser against Wrexham.

“We just want to do really well this season and try to get off to a good start on Monday,” he said.

Barry-Murphy was then reminded that when he took charge last summer, he described Cardiff as the biggest club in Wales.

“Cardiff feels like the biggest club in the world to me,” he said in response.

“When I’m here the energy from the supporters is incredible.

“Hopefully on Monday you’ll see an atmosphere that befits the stadium and the club and we’ll try to do our part by producing a performance that gives us a chance to win.”