I Feel ‘Devastated’ And I wish they could stay back: Rob McElhenney talks about top team players exit and why he wants him to stay….

Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney has confessed he was “devastated” when club stalwarts Ben Tozer and Luke Young left the team last summer.

Alongside Hollywood A-lister Ryan Reynolds, the “It’s Always Sunny” star has been instrumental in turning around the fortunes of the Red Dragons since their 2020 takeover. The Welsh side has seen two promotions since then, with this season marking their first time competing in League One in 20 years.

Tozer and Young were key figures in Wrexham’s rise to the EFL’s third tier, earning themselves legendary status at the Racecourse Ground for their efforts. However, both players departed at the end of last season, with Tozer moving to Forest Green Rovers and Young signing for Cheltenham Town.

Tozer made a significant impact during his three-year stint at Wrexham from 2021 to 2024, making 136 appearances and netting seven goals. Young, on the other hand, played 252 games and scored 23 goals over six seasons between 2018 and 2024.

Now, McElhenney has opened up about how the loss of these two key players affected him. Speaking on Men in Blazers, he said: “One of the very few downsides of becoming so personally close with the players is that you have to say goodbye to everybody at some point.”

“Ultimately, that’s a metaphor for life in general which is that people come and people go,” he remarked as he opened up about his sense of loss over the duo parting ways with the club after such a long run. “But when you put so much value on the relationships that you have with people, to say goodbye is very difficult.”

“We have had so many valleys along the way, in so far as we started the conversation talking about Ben Tozer and Luke Young, who is my favourite player and I was very public in stating that! That’s not a slight to the other players, I just loved Luke, he was our longest-tenured players, he was with us from the very beginning, so to say goodbye to him was devastating devastating.

Despite no longer having their company, the Dragons are looking sharp early in the season, proudly sitting atop the League Two standings after securing four victories and a tie in their first five matches. Reflecting on their robust start, Manager Phil Parkinson shared: “Five games in and I know it doesn’t count for a great deal but equally I think we’ve got to be pleased with the work so far this season.”

“Having the ability to handle being at the top and that extra kind of expectancy it creates, of course we’ve been there. The run with Notts County in the National League, every game was full on and you had to win every game and had to perform at your best to keep winning.”

Expressing his satisfaction with his current squad, he further stated: “So yes, we’ve got a group who are used to living with that and hopefully we’ll continue to thrive under that bit of added pressure. At the moment we will roll with what we have got.”