THE start of the season is a time when teams gel, managers make adjustments to their side and see that some ideas which looked good on paper don’t work so well on grass.

Wrexham have started the season very well, the draw at Bolton Wanderers is proof that we can live with the best in the division.

Phil Parkinson’s plan has been successful so far: on the first day of the season he made one change to the XI he selected for the last friendly of the summer, and he made one change from that side at Bolton.

So far, so stable, and with some eye-catching signings yet to be assimilated into the starting line-up, we’re in a good place.

One thing I’ve noticed over our last two away games fascinates me, though.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s delve deeper into The Curious Case of Ollie Rathbone.

The unexpected element of his first two appearances for Wrexham is where he was positioned on the pitch.

Last Sunday was the 275th league appearance of his career, and all of those came at Championship or League One level.

He hasn’t been playing where he did for us, though.

He showed his quality in added time at Bolton. We half-cleared a corner and had a chance to launch a break as the ball fell to Rathbone, 30 yards out from our goal with two Bolton players looking to nick the ball from him.

His composure on the ball as he side-stepped a challenge and bought time to play the perfect pass was impressive.

Rathbone’s ability isn’t under question, but how he’s been used in his first two games has been a surprise. At Sheffield United he started the game playing off our striker, Sam Dalby. At Bolton, he came on in essentially the same position.

This really isn’t where anyone expected him to be deployed. Rathbone has made his reputation deeper on the pitch, driving play forwards.

In his entire career, he’s scored 23 goals in 304 appearances, the most he’s scored in a season being six. That doesn’t suggest he’s going to chip in with many goals if he’s used higher up the pitch.

So what’s going on? Bringing him on with 11 minutes left at Bolton fitted into a certain orthodoxy.

Bolton have ball-playing centre-backs who want to play out from the back, so putting an energetic player on in a higher position could disrupt their ability to start attacks as they would wish to when we were looking to close out a clean sheet in a difficult away game.

Fielding him in that position from the start is a different matter, though. We weren’t looking to secure a result late in the game, so does Parkinson see this as a permanent position change for Rathbone?

It’s hard to imagine that’s the case. It could be Parkinson’s thinking was similar to what happened in Bolton, as we looked to counter-act a higher division side.

There’s another, intriguing possibility, though.

Could we be looking at extremely cutting-edge use of data here? A reversion to the original, pure concept of Moneyball, where players are recruited based on the evidence of what they’ve achieved rather than the potential of what it looks like they might do?

Rathbone has some spectacular stats under his belt. In 2021-22 he won the most tackles in League One, and the previous year he was second.

In the 2020-21 season he won the sixth most free kicks, and perhaps most eye-catching, he had the sixth most successful take-ons in the Championship in 2022-23.

These stats would all suggest that playing him higher up the pitch would assist our high press, and that he can beat a man and get into a position to deliver.

Could it be that Parkinson has seen this and thought he could remould Rathbone in a totally different role? Frankly, no.

I can’t believe that’s the long term plan. However, it could be that the data, used alongside Parkinson’s keen eye, meant Rathbone was seen as an unorthodox, fascinating weapon to use in a specific scenario.

We’re in a league where small details matter, and if we can use data in such original ways, we might just be able to gain an advantage.

Reading arrive having enjoyed a fantastic run of form in their most recent visits.

Their last three games at The Racecourse, between April 1999 and December 2001, ended in victory for the Royals.

Indeed, Reading have won their last five games against Wrexham, and are unbeaten in seven. All those sequences are the best they’ve managed against us, so we need to stop the rot.

The most recent defeat saw goals either side of half time by Nicky Forster and John Salako.

Our last win against them, on the opening day of the 1998-99 season, was an exciting occasion. Brian Flynn had pulled off a transfer coup by signing Ian Rush, and a crowd of over 6,000 came to witness his new-look team.

They lived up to the occasion, Karl Connolly, Peter Ward and an Andy Legg own goal earning a 3-0 win.