Saturday 8th August, 2009last year, mid-August
Former England manager gives City a lesson
Notts County 5 Bradford City 0 At Meadow Lane in League Two, 2009/2010
The opening day of every season is about learning lessons after three months of playing football in a hypothetical context give way to ninety minutes of reality and sometimes that reality is cold and sobering.
Bradford City’s lessons today were sobering. The afternoon started with a minute’s applause for the late Sir Bobby Robson. Robson had a lesson which he passed on to another manager who like Magpies boss Ian McPartland had seemingly endless riches to spend – a young Jose Mourinho – who relates the story as “One of the most important things I learnt from Bobby Robson is that when you win, you shouldn’t assume you are the team, and when you lose, you shouldn’t think you are rubbish.”
The World’s media came to watch Sven Goran Erikkson and the millions which are being pumped into Meadow Lane and went away purring about the home side caring hardly at all for the visitors who were but ballast in the story.
When Brendan Moloney pushed forward from full back leaving Lee Bullock to simply not track him back and allow him to score. Bullock’s head was down with the Bantams 4-0 down but he should have done more, put in more effort.
That he did not came after a grinding ninety minutes. City began brighter than their visitors with Stuart McCall having opted to send his side out to try upset the home team with a high line and a pressing forward line. The theory that McCall employed was – one assumes – that being at home and under scrutiny County would play similarly but alas they did not preferring to approach the game almost as an away match and sat back to play on the counter-attack.
So City pressed and as the season with fifteen minutes old Joe Colbeck had been unlucky to see his header saved after some great approach play and Peter Thorne look menacing on the far post with the ball under City’s control and City looking easy on the ball. County’s responses seemed to be entirely physical with Moloney especially guilty of some fearsome challenges with studs showing. City faced a midfield battle and bit by bit were edged out.
Edged out perhaps because while Bullock and new signing Michael Flynn looked tidy in possession and decent in the scrap they often found the ball pumped over their heads and when it was pumped in between Matthew Clarke and Luke O’Brien City were incapable of dealing with the ball across and expensive import from Shrewsbury Ben Davies finished on the far post.
It was not especially deserved and City should have kicked themselves with Clarke and O’Brien – not for the only time today – incapable of stopping the ball getting across the face of the box. New keeper Simon Eastwood hardly showered himself in glory with his control of the backline – very little – but collectively this was the beginning of errors that continued all afternoon.
That said City should have been level – or had the chance to be level – when Peter Thorne was shoved with two hands from behind by keeper Russell Hoult at a corner minutes later but the referee was curiously unmoved. The game was littered with pushes and free kicks many of which were given for much more malignant offences and not giving a penalty there was pre-season refereeing.
One had thought that the studs showing challenges were the results of being rusty – rather than a desire to be rustic – but they continued throughout the game with Graeme Lee engaging on any number of lunges h simply did not do for the Bantams last year. Anyone who wondered what Lee used to do at City and thought he would not be missed will not have hung their head when another long punt bounced in front of and over Zesh Rehman – who had a poor afternoon – and fell into the path of Lee Hughes who rounded the keeper and scored.
On to Lee Hughes now who rejoiced in his goal celebrating in front of the City fans who were taunting him with chides about his conviction for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving four years ago. Hughes faced the boos and on scoring pranced in front of City fans with delight.
There is a misunderstanding around Hughes when he is booed and responds to that jeering with his self-congratulatory dancing which would eventually get him booked in this game. Hughes is not booed as a former player like Graeme Lee or because he has long hair and is dubbed “Gypo” or because he has dived in a previous game. Many, if not most, people find Lee Hughes and his actions when arrested as being despicable and have the opinion that his playing cheapens the game of football. I think a man has a right to earn a living and Hughes does so but what is he trying to say when he goes to away fans and taunts them?
He has not proved fans wrong as a former player putting one over his old team mates would or silenced the people giggling at his hair yet he acts like Dean Windass returning for Sheffield United did. Frank Leboeuf said “He might be a good but footballer but he is a shit man” and no matter how many goals Hughes scores in this or any other season he has not proved anybody wrong. His prancing leaves a bad taste in the mouth as do the County fans who praise him. One can only hope that Sven and the Munto Group asks why their centre-forward is being called a murder and is as repulsed by the behaviour as I am.
Hughes got his second goal through another failure by Luke O’Brien to cut out a cross from the right. His third from a shameful dive from Luke Rodgers prompting the question of if County are going to be so good do they have to cheat? Seemingly so but the fourth goal killed City’s hopes off.
Steve Williams, James Hanson and Gareth Evans all made debuts off the bench and performed well with Williams looking mobile at the back coming on for Clarke who had had a better game than Rehman but had been replaced anyway. Evans and Hanson took the flanks coming on for Colbeck who had looked good in the first half and for Chris Brandon. Peter Thorne and Michael Boulding combined well with Brandon to see Boulding flash a shot wide.
The fifth goal came as the game dragged to an end leaving City looking back at ninety minutes of a defensive performance littered with individual mistakes – although Simon Ramsden looked good and pocketed Jamie Clapham – and a choice of approach from McCall that got it wrong and flew in the face of the manager’s talk of the Bantams learning to go away from home and play ugly, shutting up shop and being hard to beat.
County seem to be going onto bigger and better and perhaps their is no better illustration of the future for the Magpies than Hughes. Sneering success, at at any price, no matter what.
For City’s part though the short hop over the Trent to Nottingham Forest for the League Cup – bizarrely we parked next to the Brian Clough stand this Saturday afternoon – and then to Port Vale in League Two on Saturday looking to start the 45 game season anew.
The media beyond League Two are calling Hughes sparkling and toasting Sven’s perfect start but rather than the Swede one recalls the other former England manager and the lesson he would give for both teams today “When you win, you shouldn’t assume you are the team, and when you lose, you shouldn’t think you are rubbish.”
I spent all last year wondering why Luke O’Brien was being lauded as some new found god & pointing out to whoever would listen that whilst he might be a nice young local lad with a good attitude & occasionally makes a decent run forward, he is not a good defender. He rarely stops crosses coming in which should be his bread & butter, frequently lets forwards stroll past him, lumps long hopeful balls upfront & rarely wins headers being too short. He is not in a position to be noticed for glaring errors like the centre backs so at the end of the game he gets more credit than he deserves for the odd decent cross & his indifferent defending is unnoticed or ignored. Player of the year? – not in a million years for me.
this has got to be the the most disgraceful and bias journalism ever,Lee hughes did not murder anyone.Why should notts fans not celebrate a goal ,,,,GRAPES AND SOUR COME TO MIND you were demolished by the super magpies
Moving aside from the fact that the article never calls Lee Hughes a murder. I would say that what a support things of Hughes is a personal thing and were he to be scoring goals for City I would find it very hard to celebrate his goals because I would find it very hard to hear the kids who support the club and did not understand his crimes – and as I say this is not a former player or an interesting haircut – lionising him and I would find it very hard to see him being admired by a wider public. You might be able to enjoy that but I know I would not and I personally believe that Hughes should take any abuse he gets and accept it.
I would also find it hard to defend Hughes to people who criticised him or try obfuscate the complains that people have with him with silly talk about “demolishing”. We have played you five times in the last three seasons and still have the balance of victories so allow me not to be impressed with your Notts County are great – “that is why we beat Bradford City under half of the time.”
Ultimately Hughes as a player should be playing further up the league but many clubs simply will not sign him despite his obvious abilities because of behaviour like yesterday but a few clubs are able to ignore his background – which is near unparalleled in football history – for his goals and he is prepared to take the huge money on offer from Meadow Lane to score them.
David Moores once said of Liverpool “This club exists to be a source of pride for its supporters.” I would get no pride from watching Lee Hughes play.
Hughes was reacting to the grief we were giving him. I think it’s a little hypocritical to boo and player and chant ‘murderer’ at him and then react in such a shocked way when he dances in front of us when he scores.
Hughes was indeed reacting to the grief but my point is that he is not getting grief in the same way Graeme Lee was and that after his hat-trick he had not proved anyone wrong, answered his critics or put one over on anyone. The goals he score do not change the reasons he is getting grief so he may as well have come over and pranced when the first bit of grief was heard.
Why wait until he has scored a goal to make his statement that while some people found him distasteful he was going to react to that with a daft dance? The goal changes nothing except in Hughes’s head where he (seemingly) thinks he is being griefed for the same reasons as Graeme Lee and that he has shut his critics up. He could score a hat-trick every game but people would still be as critical as him in the first moment as the last because some people find him that dislikable.
I don’t see an hypocrisy on my side in that.
Predicted we would lose 5 – 0 City never fail to disappoint. Why do we never p?€s on someone else’s chips? Long hard slog against relegation predicted unless…
Whata magnificent turnout again by the City fans – over 2,200 making the journey down to Notts County – the home team mustered not even 8,000 supporters despite all the frenzy and millions invested this summer!
Again the team and management let down a big away following – not so much by losing but more the performance witnessed by the travelling army of City fans.
Listening to coverage of the game from the comfort of my home was less painful I guess – but still a numbing no show from most players – and seemingly a carry over from 08/09 – I would guess that the likes of ML will be mightily concerned if this form continues – and I am more than coming to the conclusion that perhaps our gretaest ever team player may not make the grade as a manager – no different from many other star players.
The most sensible comment I’ve read on any of the message boards this morning.
Rather than revel in the taunts he should hang his head in shame. If City were to sign an animal such as him I wouldn’t attend the games.
How would the victim’s family have reacted seeing him lapping up the taunts? He hardly looks full of remorse now does he?
As the writer suggest it’s a totally different scenario to being booed because your Robbie Savage, Dennis Wise etc These guys were booed because they’re idiots and it’s a pantomine scenario, Hughes is booed because he commited a despicable crime yet still has the cheek to prance around like he’s some kind of hero…makes me sick.
I’m just gutted that it has only taken us one game into the new season to be so downhearted. However, we should remember that in previous seasons we have cruised our early games and it has meant nothing in the long run. In this case we lose our first game and it can still mean nothing long run.
But what we do need to start doing, as the article suggests, is playing hard and ugly when we go away from home – yes, try to nick a goal or two and a win, but lets frustrate teams more this year, make their fans annoyed not ours!!
ITS ONE F*****G GAME!
2 bad defensive mistakes dont make us a bad team. We were on a hiding to nothing to be honest, the County players would have been well up for it with all the hype. There are prob some serious bonuses on offer for them going up.
Good luck to County, but I dont think we will be the first team to be tonked by them this season.
Lets get the silly cup game out of the way tomorrow and crack on with the league. Compare our squad with others in the league and its defo in the top 7 in terms of quality. Its about us putting it together and getting it right. I wouldnt bet against some funds being available around Xmas time if needed for loans etc if we are somewhere near.
Come on City fans, lets get behing the boys for a big welcoming in front of our own next Sat!
here here
I wasn’t at the game so I can’t comment on the specifics but please let’s not chuck in the towel after one bad result, for goodness sakes. As Simon Parker points out in today’s T & A, Gillingham were slaughtered 7-0 by Shrewsbury early last season and ended up promoted. I also remember a certain team of Mills, Blake, Beagrie, McCall et al being in the bottom three after the first six games before going up in second place. It’s a marathon not a sprint folks, so let’s get behind the team; it’s way too early to start carping.
Yes, it does sound as though we froze on a big occasion, but we won’t be playing County every week. We probably do still need to acquire an out and out defensive midfielder if we are to grind out results away from home as Stuart has suggested – the current midfield is set up to attack and doesn’t seem capable of sitting back when required.
Luke O’Brien is a very promising young full back who had far more good games than bad last year, but he’s obviously still not the complete article and is bound to have the occasional poor performance. If you analysed our goals against last season I’m sure you would find that far more were set up from the right side of our defence than from O’Brien’s flank – his ‘indifferent defending’ was much more effective than that of the experienced Paul Arnison, who hardly made an effective tackle all season and allowed streams of crosses by backing off or getting caught out of position. Please let’s not start jumping all over Luke O’Brien the first time he makes a mistake, as happens all too often with Joe Colbeck.
From what I heard on the radio the defence tightened up significantly when Williams came on for Clarke, so it will be interesting to see who Stuart starts with against Forest and Vale.
Steve
The right side of defence is more likely to be targeted in the early part of this season because O’Brien will be considered a weaker full back than Ramsden.
I only listened on Saturday and it’s obvious that the need to sort out central defence is urgent with a capital U! The rest of the team will be fine as long as this is dealt with. Clarke just doesn’t inspire me with confidence, how did Williams perform for the 30 plus mins he had?
On Saturday I would have had either Boulding or Thorne on the bench and packed midfield, kept it tight and tried to frustrate County. They are a decent side & their pre season form was better than ours, I couldn’t see anything other than a defeat looming if we tried to attack too much and left our back door wide open.
I really think SM wanted to make a big statement to the rest of League 2 on Saturday and it backfired badly, lesson learnt I hope!
I was at the game and I think you are right Steve K – we were far too open – Stu was indeed probably looking to try and make a statement.
Lots of accurate comments about defensive frailty on here and other sites that I think are well observed. It is very early to judge Williams, but on the evidence of 20 odd mins on Saturday I am very optimistic. He looks like a footballer for a start (cf Clarke who does not); he was feisty, won his challeges and was chatting to players around him – even shouting at Rehman to get him into position. Bigger concern for me is tactically we lose our heads as soon as we go behind. You cannot ask Boulding and Thorne to fight all day for long high balls and expect success. If this is the only way we can play, much better to pair Hanson and Evans, or even Osborne, who at least has some pace. Agree with others that Flynn was well off the pace – looks heavy-legged and unfit. Needs reserve games I think to get match fit, and then bring him in, or play Brandon in the middle – at least he has a pass, and gets his head up looking for balls to play in to FEET of our forwards. That would still leave us a holding midfielder light and we don’t seem to have one unless Bullock can be a bit more disciplined.
I must confess to being confused about Bullock’s role in the side. When he first arrived, two seasons ago, he mostly sat deep, in the holding role, and was reasonably effective at that job, winning tackles and playing short passes to more creative players – I remember thinking that it was good to finally have someone with a bit of muscle in the middle. Now he seems to have decided that he is an attacking midfielder, despite the fact that he has no great pace, ball skill, creative vision, slide-rule passing ability or (so far as I know) significant goal-scoring track record.
I’ve just seen the BBC video clips of saturday’s goals. Rehman’s howler for the second (though no worse than some of Lee’s gaffes last season) obviously stands out, but those kinds of individual errors will always happen occasionally at this level. Bullock’s part in the first and last goals interests me more. On both occasions he was jogging back with little serious intent; in the first instance he was blatantly ball-watching whilst the County goal scorer ‘ghosted’ in behind him to head home and in the last he pulled away (presumably to avoid conceding a penalty) when, with a bit more effort, he could have got a tackle in outside the box, or at least got in the attacker’s way.
Am I the only one that would rather see Bully sitting in front of the back four winning tackles and leaving the fancy stuff to Colbeck, Brandon and Flynn (who does have a decent scoring record at League One level) rather than jogging belatedly back as the bloke he should be marking bombs into our box and scores?