Southampton revelled in their 2-1 comeback win over Wrexham in the Championship by poking fun at their Hollywood-owned opponents following their late show at St Mary’s
Southampton poked fun at Wrexham and their Hollywood owners on social media after completing a remarkable turnaround to win their opening Championship game of the season.
Saints were relegated from the Premier League in 2024/25 and kicked off their Championship campaign at St Mary’s against the newly-promoted side on Saturday afternoon. It seemed as though Will Still’s first competitive game in charge of the club was going to end in defeat until a dramatic conclusion.
Wrexham have stormed up the leagues since being taken over by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and their first foray into the second tier since 1982 got off to a flying start.
Ronnie Edwards’ push on Kieffer Moore allowed Josh Windass the chance to put them 1-0 up from the penalty spot and the new signing did just that by beating Gavin Bazunu.
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Both sides squandered chances, with Windass and Jay Robinson hitting the woodwork before Bazunu produced a stunning one-on-one save from Ryan Hardie. And after Still emptied his bench, sending on three strikers, Saints were rewarded.
Ryan Manning curled a brilliant free-kick into the corner from 25 yards in the last minute of normal time before providing the low cross from which Jack Stephens converted the winner at the back post in the 96th minute.
It was an impressive turnaround from Southampton, who won just one league game at home in the entirety of last season, and they weren’t shy in celebrating the three points on social media.
The Southampton account on X quickly quote-tweeted an earlier post from Wrexham Police FC, which contained a magic eight ball predicting a Wrexham win. Saints’ response was a hands-over-mouth emoji with a video showing a magic eight ball which simply read: “Don’t count on it”.
There was also a little dig at Reynolds in the form of a reference to Deadpool – one of his most famous films.
The gags were even less subtle on the club website, where the headline of the match report read “Report: Hollywood finish from Saints earns win over Wrexham” and contained the line “it was a finish straight out of a Hollywood script”.
Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson was booked for his protests in the first half and was left with a bitter pill to swallow at full-time, even though his side which contained six debutants impressed against Saints.
It was a dramatic introduction to English football for Still, too, who left Lens in France to join Southampton in the summer. Asked what his takeaway from the game was, Still told Sky Sports: “Welcome to the Championship. I couldn’t have had a better introduction than that.
“I thought we deserved to get three points at the end of it. The first goal we conceded was a bit frustrating, we can do better from a throw-in in the final third, we messed it up a bit in the transition and conceded a bit of a silly pen.
“We floated a bit after that as we tried to get back up to speed, but after that I thought we created enough chances to get back into the game. That’s probably the Championship for you – it was two set pieces that unlocked it and then a scramble at the end.”