Evans shows the routes to success

Few victories reward the heart more than the hard fought for victory and as City put a spell of bad form behind them with a determined performance over a Morecambe side which arrived at Valley Parade with four wins from as many games.

Peter Taylor – shod of his target man with both James Hanson out and Luke Oliver back at Wycombe and back on the bench – deployed Gareth Evans as a front runner with support from the pace of Leon Osbourne and Gavin Grant and was rewarded with good set of performances from his forwards but especially from Evans who perhaps put in his best performance in a City shirt.

The summer signing ran his legs down to the knees in an evening of working channels and following passes down to the touchline often with no support and no target to aim for in the middle. Evans ran, harried, held and often was chunked to the ground by a Morecambe side who has – some might say – conspired to have him sent off at Christie Park earlier in the season.

Indeed it was one of these chunkings that saw Evans have his legs taken away for a free kick on the bye-line which was floated over by Robbie Threlfall, headed on by Steve Williams and finished at the far post by Zesh Rehman.

Rehman peeled away to thank Peter Taylor enjoy the culmination of an improvement in his performances that saw him not only score what turned out to be the conclusive goal tonight as well as put not a foot wrong at the back. Whatever Zesh was doing wrong a month ago he is going doing right now, although his is still Asian and if that is why his name was booed as it was read out – and if you are one of the people who did the booing – then please would you not come to my site again because you are not welcome.

Adam Bolder – on the other hand – seems to have earned the ire of the support for reasons which elude me. A midfielder who arrived as one too many loan players in my opinion but has done a decent job filling the not inconsiderable hole left by the injured Michael Flynn Bolder put in a healthy shift of work tonight never shirking a tackle, never stopping running in a game in which the Bantams more or less owned the midfield area.

Aside from the usual reservations about loan players one could not fault Bolder’s application in a Bantams side that first and foremost built a platform for victory by defending stoutly and with a deep set midfield. In the closing minutes Gareth Evans was given a through ball and powered forward with it as if it were first minute not last to square a ball to Bolder who sidestepped and jinked and danced his way around the odd defender and goalkeeper Barry Roche to place into the goal and win the game.

Gavin Grant turned in a best display in a City shirt, Steve Williams looked confident, Lee Bullock controlled the positioning of the two lines of defence and there was little not to be pleased with from the way that Peter Taylor has managed to impose a structure onto a disparate group of a few first teamers – only Rehman and Bullock started the first game of the season – reserves and loanees.

System and structure are all, and are imposed well even against a Morecambe side who had a winning habit when arriving.

The visitors – however – appeared almost scared to play with eleven men looking as if they were worried about the expectations of a lofty position. They sidestepped the responsibility to create play and were restricted to a fistful of chances which Jon McLaughlin dealt with well.

So City rise to fifteenth and are mathematically safe from relegation but perhaps the lesson from tonight is more about how Taylor will manage City next season. A system put in place and players detailed how to play in it giving a variety of approaches and a number of routes to success.

City face Morecambe looking at a new type of football

The grimness of an away day at Burton and the realisation that the Bantams are going to fail to improve on last seasons league position has led to a dark cloud hovering over Valley Parade that threatens to consume all beneath it.

Mark Lawn – who two months ago flexed his muscles to rid the club of what he saw as the curse of Stuart McCall as manager – must wonder how everything he touches at Valley Parade seems to go wrong: Signing Willy Topp, signing Zesh Rehman, “giving” £600,000 to the player budget, replacing McCall with Peter Taylor. It seems that Lawn is finding what many involved in football do and something McCall would underline. That the will to succeed is not enough to ensure success.

Author Mark Twain – on one of his more crabby days – said that it was “not enough in life to simply succeed, other must fail” and this is very true in football. No matter how much work and effort you put in, no matter what you do, if enough other teams do better then you do not achieve the goals you have. Aston Villa are a great success but to win the league they require a lot of other clubs to fail.

As Lawn watches Peter Taylor’s team flounder both in position and play he must wonder how making the best possible appointment has started in this way. He need to ignore these thoughts. Football management is done over the longer term and in stability – the people who denied this as they railed against McCall can hardly point to Taylor’s arrival as proof of concept – and once again the Bantams are in a position of needing to keep faith in a manager, needing to give him time, needing to have stability.

(I knew I would end up writing those words, but I thought it would be more than two months before I did.)

The end of Taylor’s start at Valley Parade has provided difficult to watch but Taylor’s priorities – results over performance – are those that Lawn recruited and these priorities were evidenced in the 1-1 draw at Burton Albion.

As woeful as it may have been to watch the result in the East Midlands was a good one. Peter Taylor’s football is a football of percentages and grinding. It is a football of aiming for two points a game not a win in every match and as a part of that playing as – as one Burton fan said – “the worst team who has played us this season” but getting a point is the aimed for achievement, especially considering the injuries the club has.

Taylor’s football is about percentages and doing the thing that most often gets success. A football about setting an aim and putting in a level of effort to get it. Not 101% flogging players like horses but a measured effort that ensures that a level application can be given for every game. It is a football that is not tied up in the passion and chest beating of a Stuart McCall and in that it is a sea change in attitude for the majority of the players who were brought in by the previous manager.

Any sea change takes time and Taylor will have it if only because for all the criticism of Mark Lawn one would never call him stupid and to have not learnt the lessons of sacking a manager and the short term effects on the club in the last couple of months and to repeat that in another month would very much say he was so.

So the Bantams face a Morecambe side who are going for a play-off place and one can only hope that they have the same equity of Refereeing that the Bantams enjoyed at Christie Park when the roles were reversed. If at the end of the game Morecambe have scored two but had one chalked off despite it being over the line, have seen linesman raise and lower his flag as a striker sprints through and scores and seen one of the Bantams forward get booked, dive all afternoon, stick a knee into someone’s face and then score the winner then empathy with the Shrimpers will be high.

City have no Luke Oliver – who returned to Wycombe Wanderers with Taylor talking about bringing him back in the summer – a wounded bunch of players that includes top scorer James Hanson, Simon Ramsden, Omar Daley and Michael Flynn as well as a few players who are paid to stay at home. City’s striking options are limited and Peter Thorne is on a beech somewhere. Go figure.

Gareth Evans is expected to take the forward role in a 442 with Ryan Kendall or Gavin Grant supporting. The trio of Leon Osbourne, Nathan Clarke and Oliver Forsyth may press for places on the bench. The time is perhaps ripe for Clarke or Forsyth to be given a run out.

Certainly favouring the younger goalkeeper in the form of Jon McLaughlin on Saturday reaped rewards with the keeper saving a penalty and putting in a good display. Defenders Louis Horne, Luke Dean, Phil Cutler and Andrew Villermann and midfielder Ryan Harrison could all lay claims for a shot at the team.

Most likely all those players will have to wait for a chance that probably will never come. Youth development at City – as with most clubs – is far too invested in the preferences of a manager and if the club wanted to start making movements in that area then they could do so. A maximum number of over 23s on the clubs books of fifteen would be one way to ensure the manager is force to blood the younger players as would a requirement to give a certain number of the young players débuts.

Jonathan Bateson will continue at right back while Ramsden is injured – although the full back might be fit for this evening – with Steve Williams and Zesh Rehman in the middle. Robbie Threlfall continues at left back with indications being that he will be offered a deal at City next year. Luke O’Brien is expected to return on the left side of midfield with Lee Bullock and Adam Boulder in the middle. Stephen O’Leary, James O’Brien, Luke Sharry – the right hand side is up for grabs.

The season begins to sort itself out – Rochdale can be promoted tonight while Notts County’s Luke Rodgers is finishing the season he started by diving against City by moving to New York – but the Bantams have much work to do before next term.