PREVIEW | Wrexham vs Birmingham City - team news, lineups, predictions

Wrexham and Birmingham City clash this Friday at the STOK Cae Ras (The Racecourse Ground) for round nine of the EFL Championship. The match will be broadcast live at 20:00 on Sky Sports Football.

Wrexham currently have 9 points and lie in 15th position. In their last outing, Phil Parkinson's team drew 1-1 against Leicester City (EFL Championship 2025/26).

Birmingham City have 11 points to their name this season and occupy 12th position in the table. Last time out, Chris Davies's team drew 2-2 against Sheffield Wed. (EFL Championship 2025/26).

The last meeting between the two teams ended in a 1-1 draw.

The Fan Zone

Craig Jones : The games are certainly coming thick and fast this week!

After a 1-1 draw last Saturday at home to Derby and the same scoreline away to Leicester on Tuesday night, we're back under the lights again for the visit of Birmingham City on Friday evening.

After being outplayed in the first half at the King Power, we stuck to the task and scored a great equaliser through substitute Nathan Broadhead, scoring his first league goal for the club.

Lewis O'Brien was again involved with an assist, and he's probably been our best player so far this season. The midfielder from Nottingham Forest has proved to be a wonderful signing and is instrumental in so much that we do good.

On Friday, we face another tough game against The Blues, who dominated League One last season, with Wrexham finishing 19 points behind in second place.

They have a squad filled with talent and I did fancy them to challenge for promotion again this term.

Things haven't maybe gone as well as the Brum fans hoped, with Chris Davies regularly tinkering with his starting XI, but they still have enough in their armoury to cause any team problems in this league.

For Wrexham, I can see a very similar team to Tuesday night, with the only change possibly being Broadhead starting ahead of Windass behind Kieffer Moore.

Barring any injuries, I think the rest will stay settled.

Although many will fancy us to win this after Birmingham's dip in form, I'm going for the same score as last season - a 1-1 draw. Hopefully we can produce enough to win though!

Prediction: 1-1

George Revell : Birmingham City have failed to score in their last 298 minutes of football away from St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park - and they are yet to score from a set piece in the Championship this season, despite having played eight matches.

Those stats sum up two of Blues’ biggest issues - away form and, quite simply, a lack of big bodies in their squad.

You could say Blues came under aerial bombardment in their 1-1 draw at Wrexham in January. Blues’ set piece struggles have only come even more apparent since their return to the second tier.

How will they set up to combat Wrexham’s tenacity and physical presence on Friday, you ask? It might sound strange to an outsider but, despite signing 12 new players in the summer, Chris Davies doesn’t have all that many options to choose from.

Towering centre half Phil Neumann could come in for Bright Osayi-Samuel at right-back despite the out-of-favour Alfons Sampsted being the natural replacement, while Lyndon Dykes offers more presence up top than Kyogo Furuhashi.

Lewis Koumas, who possesses a bit more of the bite Blues need at Wrexham, could be preferred over Patrick Roberts on the right. Wolves loanee Tommy Doyle was just about the best pick of the bunch against Wednesday - boos could even be heard inside St. Andrew’s upon his withdrawal after 57 minutes - so I would start him over Paik Seung-ho in central midfield alongside Tomoki Iwata.

Having said all that, the Red Dragons haven’t yet registered a win at the Racecourse this season so they aren’t going to roll Blues over. Neither side want to lose; it’s going to be a menacing match-up in front of two sets of expectant supporters.

Predicted Blues XI:

(4-2-3-1): Allsop; Neumann, Klarer, Robinson, Cochrane; Iwata, Doyle; Koumas, Stansfield, Gray; Dykes

Prediction: 1-1

Predicted lineups

Wrexham: Arthur Okonkwo, Max Cleworth, Dominic Hyam, Lewis Brunt, Issa Kaboré, Lewis O’Brien, Ben Sheaf, George Dobson, Ryan Longman, Kieffer Moore, Nathan Broadhead

Birmingham City: Ryan Allsop, Phil Neumann, Jack Robinson, Christoph Klarer, Alex Cochrane, Tommy Doyle, Tomoki Iwata, Lewis Koumas, Jay Stansfield, Demarai Gray, Lyndon Dykes

Unavailable

Wrexham

• Danny Ward - Injury
• Aaron James - Injury
• Andy Cannon - Injury
• Jay Rodríguez - Injury
• Liberato Cacace - Injury
• Josh Windass - In doubt

Birmingham City

Last starting XIs

Wrexham ( vs Leicester City 2025-09-30): Arthur Okonkwo, Max Cleworth, Dominic Hyam, Lewis Brunt, Issa Kaboré, George Dobson, Ben Sheaf, Ryan Longman, Josh Windass, Kieffer Moore, Lewis O’Brien

Birmingham City ( vs Sheffield Wed. 2025-09-30): Ryan Allsop, Bright Osayi-Samuel, Christoph Klarer, Eiran Cashin, Alex Cochrane, Tomoki Iwata, Tommy Doyle, Patrick Roberts, Jay Stansfield, Demarai Gray, Kyogo Furuhashi