Articles written by Roland Harris
The dust has settled on the season now and Stuart McCall has decided City were not good enough saying we were a four out of ten team.
The dust has settled on the season now and everyone is getting ready to not be interested in the European Championships and Euro 2008 but Stuart McCall is sat behind his desk at VP trying to find out how to make his four our of ten team a nine or tenner. He hasn’t asked me for suggestions but I’m going to give them anyway.
First I’d tell him to have not made as many changes as he has which is not like me at all cause I normally favour throwing out bathwater and babies on the hope that we might get cuter babies but Eddie Johnson, Darren Williams (Who seems to have done nothing wrong except remind people of Holloway) and Tom Penford were used to the way that Stuart got City playing. The big problem this season was that it took City four months to get into the zone and get used to each other so letting go of the players who were used to each other was not a great idea.
Second I’d say that he should look again at that four out of ten. Chop the first four months off the season and take the season half of it and City are a playoff team. A good start to the season and we could end up being the best side from January to January (not that that gets you promoted) which says to me that we need a couple of tweaks and not a load of changes.
The changes we need are about smarts. We need to get smarter and stop giving the ball away so much (getting rid of Paul Evans goes half way to this) especially when we are away from home. At home we just need to make sure we understand that the best way to attack is to get the ball as often as possible so we need a guy in the midfield to win it back and that guy is not Lee Bullock or Kyle Nix. Stuart needs a Stuart and he needs one who can come in on the first day of the season and be good. Everyone in football is looking for one of them.
Third he needs to change the law so Donny Ricketts can come back. Scott Loach did nothing Ricketts couldn’t do and made the same mistakes. People were just less bored of him is all so he didn’t get groaned at. Shame to see Donny go and I don’t think he got enough of a send off.
Lastly Stuart needs to fix his team in his mind before the first day and stop the chopping and changing of forwards. We need partnership and understanding to get out of this league.
Wycombe Wanderers 2 Bradford City 1 - League Two
The first thing to say about this game is that it is proof that City should have got out of this league at the first attempt.
Well perhaps not should have but could have. Wycombe Wanderers are in the play offs but they are no one’s idea of a good football team and if they do go through the play offs I wouldn’t expect them to last a season in League One.
If only… is the theme of the day.
If only City had not had had that really poor spell in October. If only Stuart McCall had got to grips with managing earlier. If only Mark Lawn and McCall had been installed beforeDarlington had signed nine players. If only…
Delroy Facey’s goal in the first five minutes was a big if only. If City are to move on then this venerable naivety needs to be stamped out by McCall. Leon Knight got a second and City were not that the races. A penalty came when Diddy David Brown was thrown to the ground and Luke Medley scored but next season if City don’t want another season of If Onlys then we need to make sure that when we come to places like this that we put up more of a solid defence. Teams that go places don’t concede in the first five minutes.
But this is end of the season and who cares? We have been in preparation for next year for a while now and this was the Bantams more of less on the beach for the summer.
Eddie Johnson already is away somewhere now we have released him. I’m going to miss the idea that Eddie Johnson more than watching him. I always got the feeling watching Eddie that he was at 80% and that he had no idea how to unlock the other 20% and nor did Colin Todd or Stuart McCall. It was probably because he had come through Man United. Had he been Eddie Johnson signed from Farsley he would have been “could be good”.
Next season McCall has to bring in a good quality of player if the likes of Eddie Johnson get turfed out. He needs two new keepers and I liked Scott Loach but I won’t miss him if he goes for good. He flaps at crosses too much and I don’t like loan players. I like Ben Starosta and I hope he can sign for us next year but if he can’t then I don’t see Simon Francis’s name on the team sheet as often at Southend as I should do…
Mark Bower and Matt Clarke at central defense? Ok then. Paul Heckingbottom? Sure. He is good enough if the players around him are good enough and no one ever didn’t go anywhere because of the full backs. Stephen Wright after all.
Joe Colbeck on the right hand side and Lee Bullock in the middle are not a midfield. Stuart needs to pull out some impressive signings here. He needs to find a Peter Beagrie to supply crosses and he needs a Stuart McCall to win the ball and without wanting to put too much stress on the Gaffer that is the most important position on the field. Whoever he get there needs to work out a Hell of a lot better than Paul Evans.
But if McCall can get a McCall and a Beagrie in then the sky is the limit cause City have an attack that no one else in the league can match. Peter Thorne is smart and finishes brilliant, Barry Conlon has the effort, Willy Topp the skills and Omar Daley who is more of a striker than a winger cause strikers should be greedy has the pace to beat anyone in the league. Something to beat any defence in League Two next season.
So it call comes down to if Stuart McCall can find a Stuart McCall…
Chester City 0 Bradford City 1 - League Two 2007/2008
My Mum used to say to me that there was nothing worse than a bad loser and Stuart McCall proves her right.
Stuart McCall is a bad loser. He doesn’t get all childish though which is pretty much what Mrs Harris was on about but watching him react as City beat Chester 1-0 in some horrible conditions at The Deva Stadium you can see that the City boss does not want to get good at going home with no points.
He probably doesn’t want to get used to finding out that some morons (and I mean morons cause whatever it says next to the word moron in adictionary it should not just say “person that wants your Legend manager sacked after five months for nothing”) are saying that he should be sacked. I’d love to say to everyone of those people that they should say the same to McCall’s face but I doubt they really care about City that much to back up their words with anything. I wouldn’t much care if those people took their £150 a year and did something else on a Saturday if that is what they call getting behind the boys.
There were not many to get behind the boys at Chester and it was not surprising considering the foul weather and some foul displays recently but those who did make up the City mob in this tiny crowd of a thousand and a half did us proud.
And so did the players.
Chester had lost seven home games on the bounce and Stuart saw this is a chance to bin the 451 formation we saw at Stockport on Saturday and go back for a 442. Joe Colbeck gets better and better on the right wing and the combination of Paul Evans and Eddie Johnson worked hard in the middle despite the sort of conditions that make football impossible. The wind took any ball over knee height and fired it around the grass that was skiddy and muddy. Kyle Nix controlled the ball well and that set the scene for the rest of the Bantams play. There was not a whole lot of football played but the best stuff came from the Bantams.
City took control of the game early on and a few times Peter Thorne was caught off side when a sharper eye on the defensive line could have had him adding to his goal tally. Barry Conlon never looks morelikely to score than Thorne but did eventually when Colbeck put the ball over to him for him to finish off well.
From then on City were defending but not defending much. Kevin Ellison looks like a player who deserves better than Chester and his chance five minutes from the end would have gone in if it were not for Scott Loach who was being watched by scouts from Liverpool FC tonight. Looks like we might need a new keeper next term.
Will we need new strikers? We all want Peter Thorne to stay and Barry has a lot of fans because he tries so hard. He could have had a second when he did some kind of windswept overhead kick that hit the bar but the one goal was enough to win.
And winning seemed good for Stuart. He punched the air with two fists and you could see his smile. Lets hope he never gets used to losing and lets hope that the proper Bradford City fans who think about the club rather than just like the sound of their own voices never get listened to when they talk such rubbish as they have this week.