Wrexham went into Saturday's game at The Racecourse on the back of a 2-1 home defeat to West Brom and the Reds' boss responded by ringing the changes, and he also switched to a 3-4-1-2 formation.

It was the first time this season that Parkinson has selected two strikers as Smith started just his third league game of 2026-27 in attack alongside leading scorer Kieffer Moore.

It paid off with both frontmen finding the back of the net in the second period, with Smith getting his first goal of the campaign, and he earned special praise from Parkinson for the problems he caused Preston defenders.

"I spoke to Smudger about what we needed from him and I thought he did exactly what we asked," he said.

"He was a real handful and I like it when the opposition defenders come off and go, 'he's a difficult player to play against'.

"He's physical when the ball goes up, he runs tirelessly in behind and he gave them no end of problems.

"I'm so pleased for Sam because he's one of the lads who's been with us for a while and he's a fantastic character.

"He had a brilliant second part of last season and a really good pre-season.

"Kieffer's form has been really good and Sam hasn't quite had that moment in a game, but he's been close to it.

"He got one and he'll go from strength to strength for that."

Summer signings Joe Worrall and Ben Whiteman bagged their first goals for Wrexham in the first half, with the latter on target against former club Preston.

Parkinson was pleased to see four different players get on the scoresheet as Wrexham took their tally for the season to 15 goals from 11 games.

"A brilliant header by Joe. He's big, physical and he picks up the flight of the ball," he added.

"It's a very special moment for Ben and Kieffer's fifth goal of the season in 11 games with nine starts, he's right at the top of his game.

"My job is to keep him at the top of his game, and it's his job as well because he's a really good player.

"That's an important goal for Sam. We looked at who was marking him and we felt that he could get the better of his marker because we had a lot of threats in the middle of the goal."