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Graeme Souness seemed to particularly value his work, and he built up a good reputation with his work under Souness at Newcastle and Galatasaray, also working with Blackburn Rovers. This led to him being appointed assistant manager of the Wales team under John Toshack, but when Brian Little departed The Racecourse after a poor start to the 2008-9 season, Geoff Moss managed to convince his friend to take the Wrexham job on as his first step into management, while retained his Welsh role.
He enjoyed a record-breaking start, re-invigorating the side and looking likely to contend for a promotion slot. However, things fell away in the final third of the season and he completely rebuilt the side in the summer.
Unfortunately for him, the 2009-10 season saw no real improvement. His defence was sound, setting club records for number of clean sheets kept, but up front there was little creativity or cutting edge. As a result he tore the squad up again in the Summer of 2010, creating a side which certainly had more attacking bite. It undoubtedly needed to get result for him, as after two under-performing season in non-league football, fans and board alike began the campaign eager to see their club start to give the impression they could return to the Football League.
Irrespective of his work on the training ground though, his stature amongst Wrexham fans was established during the Summer of 2011 when his firm leadership and loyalty to the club helped to steer his squad through the turmoil which threatened to dismember it.
When the players were unpaid in August, Saunders took responsibility for the lower paid players by ordering the whole squad to not turn in for training or friendlies. He could easily have walked out as the club went into meltdown, but instead chose to stay and try to keep his squad together.
Dean Saunders
Manager
Born: 21/6/64 Swansea
First Match as Wrexham Manager: 4/10/08 Forest Green (a) 3-2
Honours: Conference Play-off Semi-finals 2010-11
Miscellaneous: Wales assistant manager
under John Toshack
Playing Career:
Clubs: Swansea City, Cardiff City(loan), Brighton, Oxford United, Derby County, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Galatasaray, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, Benfica and Bradford City.
Honours: FA Cup winner 1990-1, League Cup Winner 1993-4; Turkish Cup winner 1996; Premier League runner-up 1992-3; Charity Shield runner-up 1992
International Honours: 75 caps, 22 goals for Wales
Miscellaneous: Fourth highest all-time scorer for Wales; scored twice in 1994 League
Cup final; only Liverpool player to score four goals in a European tie; 1990-1 Derby
County Player of the Year; 1994-5 Aston Villa Player of the Year; scored winning
goal for Wales against Brazil in 1991; the club he was at was relegated eight times
during his career!
