Stuck in the middle with them

I know it’s hard to believe, but we’re not all obsessed. Personally a summer without football is, unlike many clubs, easily managed. But time passes and the prospect of a new season is finally stirring the brain cells if not yet quickening the pulse.

The thing is, unless you keep up to date with the almost daily off-pitch activity – often more rumour than truth – and can spare the time and cash for pre-season friendlies – neither of which I do – then the opening game can come as something of a shock to the system.

There are changes every season and this is certainly no exception. Some big money players have moved on, possibly for bigger money but no great loss there. Some big hearted players have been lured elsewhere, a cause for some sadness but in a short career life you wish them well. Some have stayed but don’t know how long they will be around. (Being a City supporter is not a week-to-week option so I hope that being a City player is not seen in that way for too long.) So that leaves the committed, and gestures such as accepting reduced terms whilst offering full effort is something to be admired and be grateful for.

Then there’s the new-comers. Eagerness to impress should come as standard. A lack of experience can be more than compensated by enthusiasm and a willingness to learn, (the opposite was true for too many last season), and putting names and numbers to new faces is all part of the new season’s fun.

The chant of “Who are yer?” may not exactly resound around V.P. in the coming weeks but the question will certainly be asked about our own team. The new kit will add to the confusion but hopefully it will put an end to the pathetic and pigmentally-challenged “Come on you Yellows!” (“Come on you Clarets!” has other connotations for those of us suffering from the taunts of neighbours just over the border, so we’ll see what replaces it.)

So with new signing Michael Flynn joining this week we’re all set then? The hope is that we have a midfield balance of muscle, mobility, motivation and magic. Sometimes you get most of these in one player but, at this level especially, these qualities have to be spread around more.

I find it easier to come to terms with teams that beat us by out-playing us than watching teams out-muscle us, out number us or plainly out-desiring us. This has to be the worst memory of last season and last season is where those failings should remain.

We have the qualities we need in our new-season’s squad albeit thinly stretched. I may be in a minority but I think Lee Bullock can once again be the player he was when he first came and go a long way to filling a somewhat soft centre. The question is does Lee Bullock believe he can be that player? Self-belief is critical.

I think Joe Colbeck has an “engine” as good as any and, contract issues aside, will take fewer wrong options to become more than just an attacking force, if the self-belief is there with him.

New signings will surely have the motivation that the ground, crowd and level of football must inspire in them. So that leaves the magic!

Last season we borrowed it mainly in the shape of Dean Furman and the incisiveness of Nicky Law, both magical on their day and well on the way to being the players we need. Now they are well on their way full stop.

Perhaps the right captain can make man management on the pitch provide a kind of magic that we have lacked. The who and how of this position is perhaps more important than the number on the shirt and will only become clear once the real games start. If it goes well then the team clicks to benefit all. If not the harsh realities of last season’s slump may return to haunt us.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right will, hopefully this season, be restricted to the blokes I sit with.

All I want for Christmas is Omar Daley

Omar Daley has a contract with Bradford City until 2011. We can say that with certainty; on that, we can all agree. Therein, however, ends the consensus on Daley. For my part, I love him, am a signed up, card-carrying member of the Omar Daley fan club – an honorary ‘reggae boy’. I have watched him mooch around never leaving second gear for 70 minutes, all the while hoping the next pass reaches him, because in him I have faith. I have sat and watch him persecute a young right back, electrify the crowd, and provide a real cutting edge to our attack, all the while my Father is complaining about his lack of commitment. I tell you all this now because Omar is a love-him-or-loathe-him player and if you loathe him, you will find no satisfaction here.

In the anonymous world that houses the plethora of message boards and online forums, the post-season boredom has frequently given way to wistful reflections on what could have been. If only McCall had a plan B, if only Brandon had played, if only Lee was a better captain, if only McLaren had not been too good for this division. Obviously, deep down none of us blame one decision or one player, but I can’t help feeling that had we been able to call upon Omar Daley throughout the last two months of the season, we may have faired better. He’s a game changer and I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have at least made something happen against Port Vale at home, or away at Chester. Four points was all we needed.

So how will we fare without him, and more importantly, what will his reappearance do for our team, or season, our hopes of promotion? I remember the talk around Christmas last, about how the return of Brandon would be akin to a new, ‘big-name’ signing. For one reason and another, that failed to materialise, only now are we seeing our ‘new’ signing, and the jury of the terraces is still out. But Daley isn’t Brandon; we know what Daley is capable of – know what he is capable of in a City shirt for that matter. I’ve spoken to plenty of folks who believe that if we just hang in there-or-thereabouts until Christmas, Daley’s return will give us the impetus to race toward that May finish line, a race that with Jamaica’s second fastest man is sure to be exhilarating.

But can we, in all honesty, even with a glass half-full, really believe that? This is a player who will have missed eight months of football, will need at least another month to regain match-fitness, and is largely celebrated/utilised for his pace, which will surely be diminished at least slightly. How do we even envisage his return? Will this be a return that can’t come too soon, necessitated by the failure to perform by the ineffectual, sluggish Brandon, or inexperienced Leon Osborne/Luke Sharry? As a return out of necessity to replace the recently departed Colbeck, who has, at last, been rescued from the shop window by Oldham? As a return that is hampered by the niggly nature of the injury he suffered? Or what about a return that is largely constrained to the bench due to the fantastic half a season had by his replacement on the flank?

Anything other than the latter scenario could be catastrophic for both player and club. A hurried return steeped in expectation is likely to end in only one, predictable manner. A bit-part role however, for a player who can leave the bench for 30 minutes and change a game not only represents a genuine alternative for Stuart, but a sensible rehabilitation for a 29 year-old whose physical and psychological state must surely have deteriorated during his eight month absence. It also limits his exposure to the fickle-faithful, the boo-boys who will undoubtedly forget that Daley has just spent the last eight months struggling to walk. This season is not Daley’s; anything he contributes must be seen as an unexpected bonus. We can get back to the expectation game with Omar next season, but we have to accept that whilst it has gone unsaid, any injury that keeps a player nearing his thirties out for eight whole months is most definitely career threatening.

I hope that this time next season Omar is terrorising some Alfreton Town fullback, cutting in from the touchline to score goals galore. But we must also prepare for the possibility that Daley’s game will have to change long-term, that we will never get the same lad back again. It has happened to the best of them, Giggs being the prime example. The pace will never completely desert him, but it is used sparingly, deployed in a targeted fashion, even used in a different position. I’m not sure whether I can ever see that happening with Daley, as even his fans often see him in one-dimensional terms, as a pacey winger with a few tricks. If that pace is dulled with age and injury, Stuart is going to be faced with a dilemma; armed with a winger who no longer puts the fear of God into division 4 defenders, does he throw him on the scrap heap, or deploy him differently?

I think if you look back at his best games, they have come when his searing pace has been coupled with a drift inside, when he has picked the ball up in the centre of the park and had every direction in which to run. These games have also seen him charging back to help out the fullback and then play his way out of trouble. These games have also seen him pop off a shot or two. The Daley knockers will counter that he rarely gets such a shot on target, that he often passes too late and that his distribution is inconsistent, and indeed they may have a point, but show me a division 4 player who doesn’t tick those same boxes.

I could of course be wrong, Daley may give us all an early and gratefully received Christmas present by bursting back onto the Valley Parade turf, full of beans and as fast as he always was. If that happens it has the potential to reinvigorate the team and give them an extra dimension. But if he doesn’t, I hope we will put the time and effort into a lad who signed a three year contract, a lad who hasn’t been constantly angling for a big move (to Oldham), a lad who began his international career at right back, who often plays in the centre of the Jamaican midfield, who is respected for his leadership qualities within the national team set up, and may just surprise us with the depth of his ability.