Birmingham City and Wrexham will meet again in next season's Championship after finishing first and second in League One
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Former Birmingham City captain Troy Deeney now works as a pundit
Former Birmingham City captain Troy Deeney now works as a pundit
Troy Deeney believes Birmingham City and Wrexham are at different levels heading into the Championship.
Blues won League One with an EFL-record 111 points and Wrexham finished 19 points behind to claim the second automatic promotion place.
The Red Dragons have now achieved three successive promotions under Phil Parkinson and will play in the second tier for the first time since the early eighties.
But Deeney – who won two promotions to the Premier League with Watford – doesn’t expect Wrexham to be fighting at the right end of the table next season.
He told talkSPORT: "I think Wrexham will struggle more than Birmingham going into the Championship.
"And what I mean by that is how it's currently set up. They play a very deliberate way, a 5-3-2, getting loads of crosses into the box. I think a lot of Championship teams are comfortable with that.
"I just don't know whether they can tweak it and do what needs to be done in terms of getting into the play-offs.
"But they have money and they've shown that every step of the way they can adjust. So Wrexham have been great, but we're better."
Deeney was far more optimistic on Blues' chances of acclimitising to the Championship. "Minimum play-offs is what they will be looking at," says Deeney.
"The squad was built to have Championship players in League One. You would expect that they will try to get players that have been in the Prem, Premier League experience, to come in and kick on.
"As much as I love the Championship and the EFL, it's not what it once was. No striker has scored 20 goals in the Championship this season. That's crazy.
"I expect Blues and Wrexham to go into the league and be solid, but I expect Blues to go and get a little bit more quality than Wrexham can afford."
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