Early signs suggest Wrexham's £500k Hull City investment will pay dividends | OneFootball

Ryan Longman has been a real solution to Wrexham's scoring woes

Wrexham’s first January signing – Ryan Longman – has made a positive early impression for the League One outfit.

Longman earned his first start for the Red Dragons this week and put on quite the performance in just over 70 minutes of work.

The Redhill-born winger had two assists in their Football League Trophy fixture versus Port Vale on Tuesday, helping them to a convincing 4-1 triumph as they advanced into the quarter-finals of that competition.

For a second match running, one of Longman’s creative moments out wide made the difference for Wrexham earlier this week.

The former Hull City player’s cross set up a last-gasp winner for Elliott Lee against Crawley Town and the two linked up yet again on Tuesday for one of Wrexham’s goals.

Wrexham signed Ryan Longman for a six-figure fee

Longman officially signed with Wrexham on January 24 in a deal worth a reported £500,000 from Hull City, tying him down on a contract locked in until the end of 2026-27, plus an option for an additional year.

At the time of that news, the Red Dragons had dropped points in three of their first four League One fixtures of 2025, netting a goal or fewer in each of those instances, and as a result, had fallen out of the automatic promotion places.

Parkinson was well backed in January, drafting some impressive attacking signings, and the early signs are that the Longman investment is set to pay off.

Ryan Longman’s presence makes a huge difference for Wrexham

It’s still early days for Longman at Wrexham, but in limited action domestically, the Brighton and Hove Albion academy graduate has made his mark.

Per FOTMOB, he’s played a mere 31 minutes of action in League One this season, but he’s been on the field for two goals and created three combined chances overall.

Since coming to Wrexham, this team has netted eight times in three competitive fixtures, as many as they managed in their previous six matches played without him.

Like many Wrexham players, Longman has a wealth of experience in higher leagues, making 118 appearances combined in the Championship for Hull City and Millwall.

He also played 44 times for Wimbledon in the 2020-21 League One campaign, when he netted a career-best eight goals.

The 24-year-old has been a speedy and skillful wide player while proving to be very impactful when he touches the ball.

Back in the 2022-23 campaign, he had the third-highest expected goals rate for Hull City (4.1).

His three assists across all competitions for Wrexham so far are just one fewer than his best single-season total, collecting four in Premier League 2 for the Brighton U-21 side in 2019-20, while doing the same with the Tigers in the 2021-22 Championship.

Throughout this season, signing a striker was on everyone’s mind at Wrexham, and the club finally obliged by adding Sam Smith and Jay Rodriguez.

Longman’s move, however, wasn’t met with the same kind of excitement as those previously mentioned names, perhaps because the club already had Ryan Barnett, who usually operated as a right wing-back.

Barnett has arguably been the best player on the team since the beginning of the campaign, leading League One in assists (eight).

Goalscoring was clearly needed for this team, but that won’t matter unless they have a consistent provider.

Longman has shown early on he’s capable of being that player, while being another extremely influential individual for this side off the bench.

It's early days, of course, but Wrexham's pursuit of a six-figure deal looks like it could pay dividends.