- Slipped down the pecking order this season
- Fitness problems have made life difficult
- Remains a proven goalscorer & under contract
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WHAT HAPPENED?
Despite being a double promotion-winning, three-time Player of the Year at SToK Racecourse, Mullin has endured a difficult 2024-25 campaign with the Red Dragons. Surgery last summer left the prolific frontman playing catch-up from the start, and he has registered just five goals across all competitions this season.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
A humbling tumble down the pecking order has been endured, with big money being invested on striking competition Sam Smith and Jay Rodriguez, leading to suggestions that Mullin could soon be offloaded alongside fellow cult hero Ollie Palmer.
WHAT HUMPHREY KER SAID
Wrexham director Humphrey Ker is, however, adamant that Mullin is not being written off. He has told the Fearless in Devotion podcast: “It’s something that is a very difficult part of this process. Both of those players are, I think, bona fide club legends. I know that is a word we like to reserve for the very deserving and often wait until they have retired. But I think it is difficult to look at two people that have re-galvanised the football club in the way that they have and not give them that title.
“But equally the challenge is that our responsibility always has to be to the club and to the team and to the whole part of it. The feeling was that in January it might be possible to inject something more and something different into the frontline, and that’s what we went out and did and ultimately those players have been the ones that have put us on this course in the past few months.
“But I do think that there are so many factors that go into his. We forget sometimes that players are human and they have any number of things going on in their lives that can affect the way that they are performing on the pitch. Paul, I think, he had two very disrupted pre-seasons – back-to-back seasons.
“Last season he came into his own, had that incredible run to the end of the season, and fired us to promotion in that run-in. Then, this season, he had big surgery in the summer and it has taken time for him to get back. Ultimately, this season has not gone the way that any of us thought it was going to, or any of us wanted to go for Paul. But, I think there is still a huge future for him at the club.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Ker added: “I think there is still the prospect of a really great pre-season. Phil [Parkinson] has shown that players can play their way into this team, and have done. Look at Jack Marriott, who was brought in as kind of a back-up to Paul in League Two.
“He started the season on fire, very unfortunate to get injured, has continued to work very hard and made himself the choice off the bench. At the start of the season people would have thought he would be further down the pecking order than he is, but his hard work and determination have got him to where he is.
“For Paul there is absolutely a route back into the first team via hard work, good pre-season, going again next year. We always felt that he is someone that can score goals in the Championship, because he scored goals in those FA Cup games against Championship teams. I think it is very much in his hands to fight his way back in.”
WHAT NEXT FOR PAUL MULLIN & WREXHAM?
Mullin, who has become a firm favourite of Wrexham fans and club co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, is tied to a contract until 2027. There is no need for the 30-year-old striker to push for a move elsewhere, with there still plenty for him to prove if the Red Dragons are able to secure another promotion and become a Championship outfit for 2025-26.