After their promotion out of League Two was confirmed on Saturday, Wrexham were always likely to have a couple of players taking up a place in the fourth-tier’s Team of the Season.
Perhaps the only surprise, when the EFL awards took place one day after that 6-0 hammering of Forest Green Rovers which secured their spot in League One for 2024/25, was that only two members of Phil Parkinson’s squad were included in the division’s ‘Best XI’.
There was no place for talisman striker Paul Mullin. Ryan Barnett, the rampaging right-back, was perhaps a little unfortunate not to be included too. But you’d struggle to find many arguing against the involvement of Arsenal loanee Arthur Okonkwo and one-time West Ham United prospect Elliot Lee.
Okonkwo, after all, has the second-best clean sheet percentage of any goalkeeper to make more than 20 appearances, unbeaten in 13 of his 34 games. The London-born youngster, capped by England at youth level, impressed at Austrian outfit Sturm Graz last season.
And it’s testament to the pulling power of Wrexham’s Hollywood script that Okonkwo was happy to go from the top-tier of Austrian football to the fourth-tier in England, the 22-year-old shot-stopper looking very much like a big fish in a relatively small pond in recent months.
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“We know he has got real potential,” Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson said in December. “He came to us without much football behind him in pre-season but he has fitted in well with the lads.
“He has been an important signing for us so far and I think he is going to get better.”
If Okonkwo is one of Wrexham’s more under-the-radar success stories, then you certainly cannot say the same of the headline-hogging Elliott Lee. The Robin to Mullin’s ever-ruthless Batman, perhaps, Lee has enjoyed the most productive campaign of his career with 16 goals and four assists from his attacking midfield role.
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“Huge congrats to Elliot Lee,” was the response of Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds after the West Ham academy graduate was nominated for League Two’s Player of the Year award.
“So well deserved.”
Hands up who predicted that, in 2024, we would tsee the star of Deadpool taking to social media to express his admiration for a former Colchester, Luton and Barnsley midfielder? It’s certainly strange times we’re living in.
Lee would lose out to Notts County’s assist-machine Jodi Jones in the Player of the Year gong. But a spot in the Team of the Season, and a future in League One, are consolation prizes Lee is more than happy to accept.