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.

With Dean Keates playing his 600th career match tonight, it seems appropriate to reflect on how Andy Morrell has looked to develop a balance between youth and experience. He seems to have made a better fist of it than his predecessor.

Dean Saunders brought a lot of older players in and some became mainstays of the side. Some, though, were rather less successful purchases. Saunders seemed to place rather too much emphasis on the idea that players who had played at a higher level must therefore have the technique to excel at Conference level. What he seemed to forget was that some of them had dropped to our league because they’d lost the ability to perform through age or physical impairment, like John Curtis or Patrick Suffo, whose gammy knee would swell massively after matches, or lack of motivation. Lamine Sakho anyone?

I recall our side being mocked last season during our duel with Fleetwood Town from some of their fans (yes, there are some!), who claimed our aging team would need to be dismantled at the end of the campaign. I must admit that the point hit home to me; I could see there was a danger that we’d have to replace some key players sooner rather than later.

Morrell has addressed the issue well. Unlike some of Saunders’ squads, which carried players, there’s no slack in the current set-up. Admittedly, Glen Little has to be nursed carefully, but a talent like his deserves to be: it’s a risk worth taking if we can get a few match-winning performances out of him, or at least a few arresting cameos off the bench.

When you look at the wealth of experience in the squad, you can see what Morrell’s looking to achieve. There’s certainly no lack of leadership and character on the pitch, and there’s no need to carry the players he’s drafted in: Keates might be 34, but no teenager is going to outlast him.

It’s a reflection of the stamina he has, and the value Morrell places on him, that he has started more games than anyone else this season, missing a sole game through suspension, and only been subbed once, when we were already 3-0 up against a side from two divisions beneath us who had been reduced to ten men!  He’s played the equivalent of nearly two full games more than the player who has spent the next highest amount of time of the pitch for us this season, Neil Ashton.

Keates has two years on Brett Ormerod, though, and the striker is also showing that he has’t just come to Wrexham to see his career out. Despite Morrell’s policy of heavy rotation of his strikers, Ormerod has completed the full ninety minutes eight times this season. To put this into context, Danny Wright is the only other striker to have played a full game more times, managing eleven. Remarkably, he’s also the only other forward to have been given ninety minutes more than once: Morrell, Adrian Cieslewicz, Rob Ogleby and Nick Rushton have each completed ninety minutes just once each!

With the likes of Stephen Wright and Chris Westwood bringing vast experience to the squad at the back, Morrell has the old heads but without paying the price Saunders risked. which is no bad thing. You win nothing with kids!