Monday 8th December, 20082 years ago, mid-December
Lies, damned lies, statistics and Bradford City
Bradford City 1 Dagenham and Redbridge Forest 1 At Valley Parade in League Two, 2008/2009
Wasn’t it Paul Jewell who said ‘There are lies, damned lies, statistics and Bradford City’? Oh no, it was something else that Jagger said. Back to that in a minute. No, according to Mark Twain it was Benjamin Disraeli who made that comment – or at least he would have done if he had still been alive back in 1903.
But have a look at the official club website and you’ll see some quite alarming statistics from Saturday’s game. They say, for example, that City, starting a home game as second in the league, had just 29% of the possession, had just half of the number of shots on target as the Daggers and won 4 corners as against their opponents’ 13. Those are the kind of statistics that don’t lie.
At least now I know why the manager keeps his hair as long as it always has been. It’s so that nobody realises how much of it he tears out whenever we gave the ball away – which happened roughly every thirty seconds yesterday. He will soon be as follicularly challenged as the rest of us, especially when we concede possession about 25 yards from our own goal.
Personally, I wouldn’t have minded the Daggers’ corner count being 14, if the extra one had been the ball TJ could just have knocked out of play instead of letting it be put back across the face of Evans’ goal, thereby setting up the equalizer. But come on, be fair to Evans. He’d kept us in it and there was very little he could have done to prevent that goal.
Of course, what the statistics don’t tell you is that, for all that City were outplayed up and down the pitch, there was only one team who were ever going to score that opening goal. I don’t suggest it was fated or anything like that. What I mean is that it took a passing team, operating at pace and a real quality goal scorer to create and score a goal like that. We’ve done it before – Rochdale comes to mind – and we’ll do it again this season. There are ways of soaking up pressure and still scoring goals and we seem to have some of the best ways. They’re called Boulding and Thorne.
Even allowing for the justice in the equalizer, City could have lost the point gained. Apart from the referee, who else thought it wasn’t a penalty? And what about the reaction of the Dagenham players? The last time I saw that sort of scrum round the ref was when Andy D’Urso had the temerity to award a penalty against the home team at Old Trafford and Roy Keane’ eyeballs were several inches away from the sockets. Wasn’t that exactly what the Respect campaign was all about? So how come not a single yellow card resulted from the cavalry charge?
Ah yes, that was what Paul Jewell said. After the recent Derby game against Nottingham Forest he gave the referee 100% in his report card, because he wanted to see if anyone actually read the numbers awarded by the managers. That was the game where the ref gave a penalty for a handball that wasn’t, where quite literally a one second pause would have solved everything, that being the time it took for Derby to put the ball in the net. The penalty was saved and even the second time Derby put the ball in the net the ref found a push, although he couldn’t say by which Derby player. Replays showed two or three from Forest, none from Derby.
And why was I reminded of Paul Jewell? Easy really. That Derby ref was none other that Mr Atwell, he of the phantom goal in the Watford and Reading game and he of the non-penalty and no respect at Valley Parade yesterday. (I gather Derm Tanner’s substitute on Bantams World needed the prompting of John Hendrie to point out that this was the phantom goal ref. Still, given that he also insisted that the cross for Boulding’s goal came from Jones, maybe he could give up the day job and become a linesman.)
I just wondered how a Premiership ref couldn’t book anyone for that confrontation. Then I thought of the absolute howlers he’s made already this season, each of which has cost points for different teams and, for Aidy Boothroyd, a slap on the wrist for his reaction. But yesterday there were no TV cameras, save for the highlights package which will never show the incident. Or maybe Mr Atwell finally figured that, when you have just dug that hole a little deeper, there really must come a time to stop digging. I could almost wish for the return of Graham Poll.
Well, almost.
Is anybody else getting completely fed up when some fans are booing at half time and full time when city haven’t even lost!? The booing in the midland road stand on saturday was a complete joke, you’d think we’d have been comprehensively beaten 0-4 by the sound of it. Yes it wasn’t a brilliant performance but we’re still in an automatic promotion spot and one point closer to wycombe so shouldn’t we be encouraging our team as oppose to slagging them off when they don’t play like barcelona! I realise expectations are high this season but it doesn’t give us a god given right to beat every team we play 4-0, so I think it was a point gained on saturday as oppose to two lost, especially considering that their penalty shout looked more than justified!
I agree 100% – listening to some of the supporters in the kop / bantams bar area it would have been hard for any newcomer to accept that this team and players they were slagging off were second in the table before play started, had only lost 1 game at home in the league and were scoring goals in numbers that have not been seen for a few years.
Some people found it hard to accept that Daggers gameplan worked a treat and their high tempo / long balls over the top and to the channels had our team at full stretch for 90 minutes – yet we still managed several goocd chances and hit the bar with that great half volley from Law (or was it Boulding?)
Given the number of injuries across midfield we have done well to take 7 points from the last 9 – well not in the minds of the lunatic fringe!
Whilst not claiming to be part of the lunatic fringe, I think that the issue more than anything else is that we know by now how teams are going to play against us, but seem unable to cope with it. How many times did our punts upfield come back just as quickly, either from their equally tall centre-backs or defensive midfielder? Kyle Nix hardly had a look in all game and as we seem to be set up to play with 2 wingers, why are we unable to utilise them? If it hadn’t been for Evans, we would have lost that game.
I didn’t boo – I never do, because I am there to support City whatever and whoever is on show, but I can understand why others are booing – out of frustration more than anything else. The midfield injury crisis is not helping, but playing people out of position doesn’t either – I’m afraid that had to be one of TJ’s worst games in a City shirt – he is not a right back and was constantly out of position – time for Arnison to return I think.
Hey ho, bring on Brentford – a similar result to last season would be OK, although not sure the old ticker could take 4 goals in 25 minutes again!
I wouldn’t worry about Mr Atwell any more, Paul. He already got moved down two divisions after he shafted Derby, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was moved to non-league matches over the course of the festive season in an attempt to make him consider whether refereeing is really a career choice for him or not.
The booing is idiotic and seems to be the staple reaction to any performance that doesn’t see us winning. All it will do is drive players away from the club. Some of our “fans” seem incapable of grasping the concept that we’re playing 4th division football and, as a consequence, won’t be playing like Brazil every week.
The goal we scored was proof enough that, on form, we’re one of the best (if not THE best) footballing teams in this division, so why some people waste their Saturday booing our players is beyond me. You’d think that they might be able to find better things to do with their weekends…
I agree – on Saturday we almost did the text book impression of “a team overrun in midfield” – but of course it was very much a second choice midfield. If you take the starting 4 (I’m including a clearly unfit Mclaren) out of any team then they would feel it – take them out of a Division 4 team and you can expect their replacements to struggle.
After Brentford we will have come through a very difficult run of games, with a horrible injury list and still very firmly in touch with the top of the table.
What’s to boo about that?
Although I wouldn’t boo the team myself, as Phil Hobbs stated, I can understand why. Someone said above that “any newcomer to accept that this team and players they were slagging off were second in the table before play started”. Yes, but is that because we looked more like a team struggling at the other end of the table, rather than being in 2nd place??
Someone else also said we aren’t doing too badly considering having all four of our midfielders out. We are 3rd in the table, God knows how after some of our recent performances, but we have to take the positive out of that.
That said, to suggest we are playing poorly because of injuries to our midfield, is tosh. McLaren actually played well on Saturday. Daley has only missed 2 games, same for McLaren and only Bully has been out for a substantial period. Even Colbeck was involved in the poor, lackluster performances against Bournemouth, Luton, Shrewsbury, Stanley, Gills & Darlo. In fact Bully played in those first 3 games too. Stop blaming our ‘weakened’ midfield for the performances. If we boot it long (especially with no Conlon up front), expect it to come straight back, as it did on Saturday.
Finally, I was at the opposite end of the ground to the ‘Bazza push’ so can’t comment. However, I did clearly see NO contact with the first half incident and their player deserved his card for diving.