Birmingham City chief Tom Wagner fires "small club" dig at Wrexham AFC - Ryan Reynolds & Rob Mac claim made | OneFootball

The two sides both won automatic promotion from League One last season.

Tom Wagner has called Birmingham City's Championship rivals Wrexham a "small club", claiming that the Blues' ambitions are much loftier than those of the Red Dragons.

Because of their respective success in League One last season, and their North American owners, Birmingham and Wrexham were always going to feel slightly intertwined heading into the new campaign.

These connections have only been accentuated by the release of the new Amazon Prime documentary - Built in Birmingham: Brady & The Blues - which covers the club over the past two seasons and makes a lot of links between the two newly promoted second tier sides.

Birmingham City co-owner Tom Wagner aims dig at Wrexham

In the show, that was released on Friday, 1 August, the City chairman didn't pull any punches when talking about their Welsh competitors.

Speaking about the Red Dragons, the American businessman said via BBC Sport: "They've (Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac) done a spectacular job at bringing attention to a small club.

"I think what we have here [with Birmingham] is a club that's already a very big club and so, from our perspective, it's a bit different. The ambitions for us in the context of what we'll build is bigger than what they'll do at Wrexham.

"Our target is not Wrexham. Our target is to play Premier League football against Villa."

Blues are looking to replicate some of Wrexham's success by winning back-to-back promotions next term.

According to The Telegraph, there is an internal belief, based on their own statistics, that they can finish in the top two. These claims, though, have been tempered slightly by Wagner.

"Now we’re back in the Championship we will be highly competitive on a revenue basis, as compared to any other team," said the Blues chairman.

"We’re always planning for the future and while it would be nice to be promoted in our 150th anniversary year it’s even more important to remember that it’s always about the next match."

Birmingham can afford to be bold with their aspirations

Wagner is right to be bold with his assertions about Birmingham's size, especially in comparison to Wrexham.

Former League Cup winners and Europa League contestants, City have achieved a lot more, especially in recent times, than their northern Welsh counterparts, who, three seasons ago, were in the National League.

While their promotion ambitions are certainly ambitious, with some of the squads that were already in the second tier and those that have come down this summer from the top flight, the chairman has said before that he expects his club to earn as much money as those that have come down from the Premier League, even with the parachute payments factored in.

If that is the case, and they have the finances to compete with the top end of the Championship, it surely won't be all that long until they achieve their goals.