Amid a hectic summer of recruitment designed to make newly promoted Wrexham Championship-ready, one or two deals understandably passed below the radar.
Dom Hyam’s deadline-day capture for £2.7million falls into this category, not least because the 29-year-old defender arrived during a busy few hours that also saw Ben Sheaf join for £6.5million along with exciting Manchester City loanee Issa Kabore.
Two months on and several of those 13 new faces have already made their mark. Kieffer Moore has found the net nine times already and Josh Windass four to go with his hat-trick of assists in Friday’s deserved victory over leaders Coventry City.
Nathan Broadhead, the £7.5million club-record buy, and Lewis O’Brien also have three goals apiece, while Kabore, despite not quite being at his best in a battling 0-0 draw at Portsmouth, has arguably proved the most thrilling addition of the lot thanks to his electric pace out wide.
After Kabore, however, a case can surely be made for the relatively unheralded Hyam as the next most successful signing among the summer intake. He’s barely put a foot wrong since joining from Blackburn Rovers, whether playing in his preferred position in the middle of the back three or, as on Wednesday night, down the left-sided centre half.
The goalless stalemate at Portsmouth was typical, Hyam bringing an assured calmness to a back-line that came under heavy pressure in the second half. Just as he had five days earlier in Wrexham’s biggest result of the season, the 3-2 win over Frank Lampard’s leaders.
“Dom is so good,” says goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, fresh from denying Josh Murphy and Ibane Bowat with impressive saves. “He gives me so much advice both on the pitch and away from the pitch.
“He’s obviously much more experienced than me. Having him here and playing alongside him is unbelievable. Such a good defender and he’s done so well since coming in.”
Hyam has history with Portsmouth after spending four months at Fratton Park as a youngster on loan from Reading.
Signed on deadline day at the end of the 2016 summer window, the defender joined a squad fresh from winning promotion to League One but it proved a frustrating stay.
His only involvement in a first-team squad came as an unused substitute in a Checkatrade Trophy win over Bristol Rovers. Reading cut the loan short as a result and it wasn’t until the following season that Hyam, by now signed permanently on a free transfer by Coventry, started to blossom.
Two promotions followed, then a move to Blackburn where his consistency over three seasons was such that there was more public reaction in the Lancashire town, where fans were furious, than in north Wales at Wrexham finally getting their man hours before the window closed.
Hyam settled quickly. His ability to sniff out danger proving invaluable for a defence that had been way too open in the opening weeks of the season. Not for nothing did Wrexham’s expected goals against (xGA) for the first five games without Hyam stand at 12.57, comfortably the highest in the Championship.
His distribution skills also brought an immediate benefit to a team always looking to turn the opposition round. The 29-year-old’s passing accuracy when successfully attempting what Opta deem to be ‘long’ passes stands at 46 per cent in Wrexham colours and 45 per cent overall for the season, when his four starts for Blackburn are factored in.
To put this in context, the average among the 33 centre-backs with 900-plus minutes to their name in this season’s Championship stands at 39 per cent.
A location map of where Hyam’s passes end underlines why his use of the ball has helped bring more cohesion to Wrexham’s play. Not only does he play short passes into Matty James or Sheaf in the holding role, but his ability to pick out 6ft 5in Moore through the middle or Kabore wide on the right means Wrexham can quickly turn defence into attack.
Only those hardy few Portsmouth fans who watch the reserve team will recall the teenage Hyam, who made five appearances for the south coast club’s second string during that 2016 loan spell.
But he certainly got the job done in front of a packed Fratton Park. Never more so than just after the half-hour, when his reading of the game meant he was in exactly the right place at the right time to snuff out the danger following a rare mistake by Sheaf 30 yards from his own goal.
As the ball was worked to the ever-dangerous Jacob Murphy wide on the Portsmouth right, Wrexham suddenly looked vulnerable only for Hyam to take up exactly the right position to intercept a drilled cross before clearing.
He was similarly alert eight minutes from time when preventing the hosts from using their man over advantage to hurt Wrexham before racing up field and laying the ball off to Liberato Cacace.
Both interventions fitted in with Hyam making an average 7.8 clearances per 90 minutes, the 11th highest among centre-backs in the division. It was the same story last year in a Blackburn shirt, where he managed 7.5 clearances per 90 minutes.
What particularly stood out during his 2024-25 campaign a Ewood Park was a willingness to engage with players up the pitch, as illustrated by his defensive actions map below.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of Hyam’s value to Wrexham came in a fixture he watched from the bench after being rested by Parkinson. In his absence, Cardiff cruised through to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on a night when the League One visitors carved out 23 shots on goal and Wrexham’s xGA stood at 1.89.
Very similar, in fact, to those early season days when Wrexham faced an average of 20.2 shots per game in the five league games without Hyam and their xGA stood at 2.51 per game.
Contrast that with the other nine league games in which Hyam, captain again at Fratton Park in the continued absence of James McClean from the matchday squad with a hip problem, has started and suddenly average shots faced plunges to 12.44 and xGA to 1.11.
No wonder Hyam’s presence in the back three has already become such a reassuring sight for both supporters and team-mates alike.