MAX CLEWORTH won’t rest on his laurels when Wrexham return for pre-season training today.

The centre-back enjoyed a brilliant breakthrough campaign in 2021-22 which culminated in the 19-year-old scooping the Young Player of the Season award.

A product of the club’s youth academy, Cleworth made his league debut on the opening day of the campaign at Solihull Moors and was a regular in the side from the end of January, with the 19-year-old making 29 league appearances.

But with Wrexham missing out on promotion following a heartbreaking 5-4 defeat against Grimsby Town in the National League play-off semi-final, and manager Phil Parkinson strengthening his squad with the addition of former Crawley defender Jordan Tunnicliffe, Cleworth is not taking his place for granted.

“I assume there will be new players coming in. Some of them might be centre-halves so I have to try and prove myself again,” said Cleworth.

“It will be another clean slate for everyone to try and get into the team, not just my position but everyone’s position.

“Hopefully I have another good pre-season and we will see what happens.

“It was a competitive squad as it is so I think it will only get more competitive and that will push everyone to keep performing at their top level.”

Cleworth, who also started the FA Trophy final against Bromley at Wembley which Wrexham lost 1-0, admits he did not expect to play so many matches when he started pre-season.

“Back then I probably didn’t think I would play at Wembley or play as many games as I did,” said Cleworth.

“All in all it was a positive season for me and it was good to show a bit of what I can do.

“Hopefully I will have many more appearances at The Racecourse.”

Wrexham fell short in the promotion challenge and also failed to win silverware at Wembley but Cleworth, who signed a new contract last October keeping him at The Racecourse until 2024, will learn from the disappointment.

“It was two tough experiences to take but hopefully that will stand me in good stead and I will be able to react and improve on stuff that happened in those games,” said Cleworth.

“This season has been an experience for me and it has been a good one.

“Overall it has been enjoyable and the run I had in the side was really good, and the support from the fans was unbelievable.

“I was gutted that we couldn’t get them what they deserved, disappointed we couldn’t do it for them.

“This season is done now, it is in the past and we have to learn from it.

“But it has given us that bit of extra motivation to do it all again and go one step further and hopefully clinch that promotion.

“It just adds more fuel to the fire to kick-on next year, make the fans proud and bring a bit of success to Wrexham.”