Here’s my column from last week’s Leader. It forms part of the paper’s comprehensive pre-match coverage every Friday, featuring interviews, an in-depth look at the opposition and lots of statistical analysis. All content in the column (c) www.leaderlive.co.uk.

Like Brendan Rodgers and an illiterate plumber, I’ve faith in systems.

If you’re organised and do things right, you’ve got a good chance that things will turn out well more times than not. This is a message which Wrexham have been preaching in recent years. Their organisation and shape has been impressive, and the defensive figures have been consistently excellent as a result. But I feel a little edgy: that impressive unit has shown signs of stress of late.

The foundations our recent success have been built on were established by Dean Saunders and enhanced by Andy Morrell. Saunders got us organised and we stopped conceding goals. Morrell came in and initially continued in the same way, a wise move when so many new managers tend to make changes for the sake of change, trying to stamp their imprint on the side.

However, Morrell has refined the side’s organisation as time has gone on, resorting less often to playing an attacking midfielder behind the front three in a broken team which always ensured it had enough men behind the ball to allow such an extravagance.

But of late goals have been seeping in more regularly. Never mind the two recent freakish occasions when we’ve conceded four goals at home: clean sheets have become less common, soft goals have been creeping in.

Part of the reason for this is obvious, and the fact that it hasn’t gone totally pear-shaped a testimony to both the players and the system. Considering the amount of disruption our back four has suffered, you could argue it’s remarkable it has continued to function so well.

We still have one of the best defensive records in the division despite the fact that our defenders have been dropping like flies all season. Four of our specialist centre backs have been ruled out of matches by injury this season, the only one yet to succumb being recent arrival Danny Devine who has only just gained match fitness, while left back Neil Ashton has been absent through suspension and sometimes forced to leave his post to fill in at centre back.

With Joslain Mayebi absent through suspension and international call-ups, right back is the only spot where there’s been any scope for consistency of selection, and that was never really likely as Declan Walker, coming back from long term injury, was always liable to require a break at some point.

The other element of our disruption has been the decision we made when opting for Mayebi ahead of Chris Maxwell. In doing so, we selected aerial dominance and elasticity while accepting the risks involved. Mayebi might sometimes make magnificent interventions, but there is always the possibility that something crazy will happen. Scientists call this the Grobbelaar-Lehmann Effect.

Mayebi’s statistics are remarkable: he concedes comfortably less than one goal a game, a reflection of his ability. But he’s an all-or-nothing choice compared to the more constant Maxwell, and naturally that means that occasionally errors occur. It’s a strange contradiction that while our solid shape is fundamental to our approach, it’s that gamble which underpins our push for promotion.