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Key events
63 min A stinging long-range drive from Neto is blocked by Dobson. There’s a cracking pace to this game now. Moments later Hato sweeps a loose ball the ball just wide of the far post, though I think he might have been offside.
61 min Dobson’s corner is half cleared to Thomason, whose long-range shot is deflected behind for another corner. That leads to a big Wrexham appeal for handball and a penalty when a snapshot is blocked. Nothing given.
60 min Sanchez plays a dodgy short pass to Lavia, who is sacked on the edge of the D. The ball breaks to Vyner, whose low shot is kicked away. That was half a chance for Wrexham.
59 min A Wrexham free-kick ricochets around the Chelsea area before eventually being cleared. It almost broke for Doyle in a shooting position but he couldn’t control an awkward ball.
57 min: Chelsea substitution Marc Guiu replaces Mamadou Sarr, an attacking chance that presumably means a switch to a back four.
55 min Garnacho runs at Hyam on the left of the area because driving a cross-shot wide of the far post. Support was arriving but hadn’t quite got there and Garnacho was caught in two minds.
54 min I’m sure you’re aware by now, but there are no replays in the FA Cup fifth round so this will be settled tonight, via extra-time and penalties if necessary.
51 min At the other end, Acheampong’s shot on the turn from 15 yards is headed way by Doyle.
50 min Cleworth’s cross is met on the run by O’Brien, whose sidefoot volley hits a defender and bounces through to Sanchez.
49 min A Wrexham corner is cleared as far as Longman on the right. His cross is headed over from 12 yards by Cleworth, a very tough chance.
46 min Peep peep! They’re back under way.
Half-time reading
Half time: Wrexham 1-1 Chelsea
All square at Cae Ras. It was a hard-fought first half, with few chances at either end. Sam Smith finished well to put Wrexham ahead before Chelsea equalised through an unfortunate own goal from Arthur Okonkwo.
45+2 min “Nah,” says Mark Hooper, “this is classic Hollywood scriptwriter stuff – you need the setback before ramping up the action again for a blockbuster ending.”
You know who had an arc? Noah.
45+1 min Acheampong’s low cross is sliced behind for a corner by Doyle. That leads to another corner, which is curled in by Neto and flapped away awkwardly under pressure by Okonkwo. Wrexham need half-time.
44 min Chelsea will feel calmer after the equaliser, though there is still plenty of work to do in the second half.
41 min Somewhere in Hollywood, a scriptwriter has just been sacked.
Delap did brilliantly to receive a driven pass from Sanchez, roll his man, rumble forward and find Garnacho in space on the left side of the area. Garnacho’s shot beat the diving Okonkwo and was cleared off the line by Thomason – but his clearance hit the back of Okonkwo and ricocheted into the net.
GOAL! Wrexham 1-1 Chelsea (Okonkwo 40 og)
Chelsea are level through a freakish own goal!
39 min Sam Smith’s goal is the only shot on target at either end. Never mind romance; Wrexham’s performance so far has been a triumph of pragmatism.
37 min Doyle marauds forward in open play and has a shot deflected behind for a corner. There’s a long way to go but Liam Rosenior may be starting to wonder if he took too many risks with his team selection – not just the starting XI as the absence of Palmer, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo on the bench.
35 min This is a good spell for Wrexham, perhaps their best of the match. Chelsea are showing one of two signs of irritation.
33 min Longman’s cross deflects off Badiashile and is pawed over the bar by Sanchez. A comfortable save despite the understandable oohs and aahs.
32 min Chelsea’s options from the bench include Joao Pedro, Reece James, Marc Guii and Malo Gusto, though not Cole Palmer.
31 min Okonkwo is quickly off his line to dive bravely at the feet of Hato, who was running onto a speculative through ball.
29 min Smith gets behind the Chelsea defence again, this time in the inside-left channel. He chops back inside Tosin to create a shooting chance, only to lose his footing at the crucial moment. That was a scare for Chelsea.
28 min “With one substitution, we could see Windass up against Delap,” writes Matt Dony. “And the fact that it isn’t Dean against Rory makes us all feel old and have to confront our own mortality. Time marches on, making fools of us all. All things tend toward entropy. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I’m going to pour a whiskey.”
I thought I was the only one who remembered Good Friday 2000.
27 min Neto’s deep cross arrives at an awkward height for Garnacho, who miscues a volley back towards Neto. I think he was going for goal but it was a very tricky chance.
26 min Chelsea have had loads of the ball but their passing has been on the slow, safe side.
24 min Sanchez has to push Cleworth’s shot over the bar following a clever set-piece. He was offside, so it wouldn’t have counted.
23 min Vyner slips Lavia, who pulls him back in frustration and is booked.
22 min “Back when Welcome to Wrexham premiered,” begins Kári Tulinius, “I watched the first episode and was sure the series would sink without a trace, and at best would be the subject of an article twenty years later about the crazy time these Hollywood stars bought a non-league club. Shows what I know.”
Hey, not even Grant Tinker got everything right when it came to TV.
21 min That’ll change the mood. The VAR check, incidentally, was soundtracked by a heartfelt chorus of “Eff VAR!” from the home fans.
Sam Smith has put Wrexham ahead with a really good finish. Chelsea held a very high line, on the halfway line, and were beaten by one pass. Doyle, on the edge of his own penalty area, curled a terrific long ball over the Chelsea defence to put Smith through on goal. He controlled the ball deftly on the run, held off the recovering defenders and slid an early finish past Sanchez from the edge of the area.
There’s a VAR check for offside – but the goal stands.
GOAL! Wrexham 1-0 Chelsea (Smith 18)
Scratch that: Wrexham have scored from one of those counter-attacks!
15 min Chelsea are slowly taking control of the game, limiting Wrexham to the odd counter-attack and, so far at least, no set-pieces.
11 min Neto, who looks sharp, zips infield dangerously before Dobson makes an important challenge on the edge of the D.
9 min There’s a short break in play so that Chelsea defender Mamadou Sarr can break Ramadan fast.
7 min Chelsea look happy to move the ball around and take the sting out of the atmosphere. Wrexham aren’t seeing much of the ball but haven’t been troubled defensively.
4 min A pretty quiet start to the game, at least on the field. The Wrexham fans are still making a very decent noise.
2 min A heavy touch from Longman allows Delap to lead a Chelsea break. He finds Garnacho, whose low cross towards Pedro Neto is cut out.
1 min Chelsea kick off from right to left as we watch. Both started have started with a back three.
The players are ready to begin at the Racecourse Ground. We’re about to find out who wrote today’s script.
“Do you think,” begins Andrew Goudie, “we might have to get used to watching Wrexham play Chelsea regularly?”
Big time.
Steven Pye
In some ways, history is repeating itself. In 1982, Chelsea and Wrexham met in the FA Cup after they had beaten Hull and Nottingham Forest respectively in previous rounds. The same has happened in 2026; but this is where the similarities end.
When the clubs met 44 years ago they were in the second tier and had huge debts. With Chelsea reportedly £1.6m in the red, the future of Stamford Bridge was in doubt as property developers hovered. Relegation-threatened Wrexham spent most of the 1980s merely trying to survive.
On top of inconsistent league form and financial woe, Chelsea also had problems with their supporters. After trouble at Derby in November 1981, the FA banned Chelsea fans from away matches. However, policing the ban proved almost impossible. Chelsea fans continued to travel and make their way into the home ends of various grounds. The ban was lifted after a few months and the episode did little for the club’s reputation.
Team news
The Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson makes three changes to the team that beat Charlton a week ago. Ryan Longman, Zak Vyner and Sam Smith come in for Issa Kabore, Nathan Broadhead and Kieffer Moore.
With Chelsea playing Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, Liam Rosenior has made nine changes to the XI that started at Villa Park in midweek. Jorrel Hato and Alejandro Garnacho are the survivors.
Wrexham (possible 3-4-2-1) Okonkwo; Cleworth, Hyam, Doyle; Longman, Dobson, Vyner, Thomason; Rathbone, O’Brien; Smith.
Subs: Ward, Scarr, Brunt, Barnett, Keillor-Dunn, Windass, Broadhead, Rodriguez, Moore.
Chelsea (possible 3-4-2-1) Sanchez; Tosin, Badiashile, Sarr; Acheampong, Lavia, Andrey Santos, Hato; Neto, Garnacho; Delap.
Subs: Sharman-Lowe, James, Gusto, Chalobah, Cucurella, Essugo, Derry, Joao Pedro, Guiu.
Will Unwin
“It’s just surreal,” says the former Wrexham midfielder Mickey Thomas, scorer of arguably the club’s most famous goal. When he helped strike down Arsenal, the reigning English champions, in the FA Cup third round in 1992, he could not have expected 34 years later to be regularly rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, regaling them with the story of how he smashed a free‑kick past David Seaman.
In recent years, Wrexham have welcomed a glittering array of famous Hollywood guests to Cae Ras, thanks to Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, who often invite Thomas to the owners’ box. The north Walian town has become a hotbed for famous faces, all given the warmest welcome by a club enjoying a meteoric rise.
Channing Tatum, Hugh Jackman, Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd have made the trip across the Atlantic to witness how Reynolds and Mac have transformed this corner of Wales. They, however, are not as big a draw as Premier League Chelsea, who visit in the Cup fifth round on Saturday. Wrexham, occupants of a Championship playoff spot, have the capabilities to take their second top-flight scalp of a season that could end with a fourth consecutive promotion.
Preamble
The last time Wrexham met Chelsea, in the old Division Two 44 years ago, Frank Carrodus scored the only goal to give the bottom club Wrexham an unlikely victory. The match was watched by 3,935 people at the Racecourse Ground; Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty were not among their number. The most exotic names in the stadium that day were probably Chelsea winger Peter Rhoades-Brown and Wrexham keeper Eddie Niedzwecki.
Times change, football changes and tonight the two teams will meet in a Hollywood-adjacent blockbuster: it’s being shown live on two different channels in the UK alone. It’s Wrexham’s biggest game since Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the club six years ago, a chance to take a major scalp and reach their first FA Cup quarter-final since 1997.
The script is written, an unashamedly cheesy one at that, but Chelsea plan to make a few last-minute edits.
Kick off 5.45pm.
#Wrexham #Chelsea #Cup #live #Cup
