BfB

Scott Neilson exited Bradford City on Tuesday to join Crawley Town less than a year after Stuart McCall recruited the winger to replace Joe Colbeck. A change of manager has see fortunes flourish for many but not for Neilson who after a loan at Cambridge United the assurances from Peter Taylor that he had a future at Valley Parade turned out not to have a future at Valley Parade.

Colbeck himself left not long after to join Dave Penney at Oldham Athletic but has since himself moved on to Hereford United after – not at all coincidentally – a change of manager at The Latics saw Paul Dickov installed and the winger who was City’s player of the season two years fall from favour.

Neilson cost Crawley an undisclosed amount, City paid some money for him, Colbeck cost some money when he went to and from Oldham. The moves went across three divisions in which players like Lee Hughes and Graeme Lee go around free while clubs like York City and Rotherham United want millions of pounds for centreforwards. This kind of low fee move that is rare at this level of football seems common at least on the Bradford City right wing.

That anomaly aside the two transfers represent an Escherism. Colbeck was great for City and this was put down to the confidence boost of Dave Penney’s involvement via a loan at Darlington but his “failure” at Oldham would suggest that Penney’s coaching was not the panacea it could be painted.

Stuart McCall coached Colbeck into a position where Penney bought him for a division above and where Sven Goran Erikkson was interested in signing Neilson but few would suggest that Peter Taylor’s calling time on Neilson’s time at City is down to the former England gaffer making him a “worse” player. Indeed Taylor is credited as a better coach than the other two.

Has Colbeck become a worse player in the year that he left City? Has Neilson? They have both been considered “good” enough at times but now are moved on. My years watching the rise and fall of footballers tells me not to trust the idea that footballers can be “good” or “bad” or at least the idea that those things can change in the space of months. They play well or they play poorly, there is nothing else.

All of which represents a mess of ideas rather than a set of data to draw a conclusion from but the money that has changed hands for both players – and for the four manager who have been in charge of them – points to an extraordinary cost of doing business in football.

Doubt not the judgement of either Taylor or Dickov or the motivations of their actions they have decided – for whatever reason – to move players on who previous managers have considered to be members of the squad but do so at expense to the club. The cost of whatever Dickov is played when recruited by Oldham Athletic is already augmented by the price of paying Dave Penney to leave and added to that are the costs of changing Penney’s squad. Colbeck cost £85,000 to sign, had to be paid and then was let go for much less all in the space of a year.

This extraordinary cost is replicated at almost every club which changes a manager and considering that the average club keeps a gaffer for eighteen months every other year a club can expect to have these sort of expenditure on the balance sheet. Trying to run a stable business in those conditions is impossible but the huge increase in administrations and financial problems in the last ten years has not seen a move towards retaining managers as a way of financial stability. Far from it.

As the number of clubs in financial trouble has increased the frequency of managerial changes has too with the costs that that involves. The financial stability that is talked about from the boardrooms of clubs is undermined by the actions of those who say it then fire the manager and let his replacement overhaul the squad.

Bradford City, mercifully, have avoided much of this in the last change of manager with McCall negotiating a lessened pay-off and Taylor retaining much of Stuart’s squad and so Scott Neilson’s exit and the costs that apply to it are rare in the medium term for the club if common in the long term. That is down to a good appointment in Taylor but there is a worry of the manager having only nine months left on his current deal and this unnecessary expenditure reoccurring.

All of which continues to point to the need for clubs to prize stability a point especially worth mentioning in the days following Peter Taylor walking down the tunnel at Valley Parade with his winning team booed.

Four months into his time at Bradford City the board should not have had to come out in support of their manager – indeed they did not – but as Neilson exits and City take a hit in the pocket it would make sense if the club affirmed a desire to plot a stable path forward under Peter Taylor.

Alas since January 2008 when Mark Lawn stated the club had had enough of short term thinking City have ended up with a manager contracted until the end of the year and worries over what happens at the end of that term if the next manager is not the sort to do as Taylor has and take on what he inherited.

Since I have been in football there has been a basic question to face. Are you pretty or are you efficient? It’s as if you’ve got to choose. What is dangerous for football is when people become convinced that you have to play a boring game to win.”

Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager, May 2004

It was the complete reversal of football’s usual full time etiquette – supporters of the winning team warmly applauding, the losers receiving a mixture of boos and appreciation for at least trying – that encapsulated Saturday’s outcome in all but result.

Bradford City may have won the game 1-0, but we home fans trooped out lacking that warm feeling of satisfaction a win usually generates. Meanwhile the Stevenage fans stayed back to afford their players a standing ovation that lasted beyond the emptying of the rest of the stadium. When they did finally depart, their chanting was kept up on Midland Road outside. Any passer-by could only have concluded, from seeing the glum faces of City fans and the smiles of their Stevenage counterparts, that the Football League newcomers had just won the game.

As the roads around the stadium clogged up from heavy traffic, City manager Peter Taylor admitted live on BBC Radio Leeds that it had been a poor performance from his team, probably caused by tiredness from the midweek extra time heroics against Nottingham Forest. The listening Huddersfield Town summariser Kieran O’Regan quickly and emphatically rejected Taylor’s explanation, claiming it was too early into the season for fatigue to play a part.

And he might be right, perhaps instead Taylor’s squad rotation had more to do with an under-whelming display. There had been seven changes from the team at Shrewsbury to the Forest starting eleven, and a further five changes from that were made for Saturday’s game. Three games in, and already 19 different players have been used. The grumblings that the team played like a bunch of strangers arguably carried some merit.

But while a poor performance should largely be tolerated by City fans if it still achieves the desired result of three points, it was the manner of how City played which prompted the most concern. Once Omar Daley had lifted a shot over the bar early in the second half, Boro keeper Chris Day was not even troubled by so much as a wild long range shot into the Kop. City sat back and defended, many players seemingly fearing to cross over the half way line.

Were they too tired, shy among each other’s company, or was playing so conservatively the result of quite deliberately and effectively-employed tactics from Taylor?

When it became apparent City were just going to defend dourly for the game’s final 30 minutes, restricting visiting attacks to long range efforts, fears began to spread about whether we’d have to become used to this. Ever since he became manager in February, there’s been a Jekyll and Hyde nature to Taylor’s reputation. A strong track record at several clubs provides encouragement he can deliver some belated success to this club, but listen closely to supporters of the teams he’s managed and complaints about boring football are a worrying constant.

During the initial 18-game spell last season, we were treated to some exciting and unpredictable football, but on other occasions City played some unappealing and tedious stuff. The final five games of the campaign saw a 4-3-3 formation used to generally-thrilling effect, and the manner in which City battled back to defeat Forest last Tuesday was anything but boring. So which is the real Bradford City, and which is the real Peter Taylor?

Perhaps it’s best not to over-analyse Saturday’s events, for the time being at least. It went by almost completely unnoticed, but tagging on the results at the end of last season meant this was a fifth straight win at Valley Parade – a feat not bettered since the promotion-winning side of 1998-99. At this level few teams can play consistently well, and with justification we can perhaps view Saturday’s showing as the type of game we’ve regularly lost over recent years.

But Taylor cannot discount the importance of entertaining either. It won’t have escaped Mark Lawn or Julian Rhodes attention that Saturday was – officially at least – City’s lowest league attendance since dropping to League Two level in 2007, and any floating fans present will hardly be rushing back.

Those who were there produced an atmosphere both pitiful and wholly embarrassing. To be completely out-sung by barely 200 opposition supporters is a situation we cannot simply allow to continue in the future battles ahead.

The question is whether it is the team’s responsibility to provide the fans with the spark to sing or the supporters to lift the players is one we’ll never universally agree on. But if the boos that filled the air at full time deservedly gave Taylor food for thought, the continued chanting of opposition fans as we filed out of the ground gave us fans something to reflect on too.

Despite the victory, Valley Parade was not a happy place to be on Saturday. Supporters, management and players all have a responsibility to in future reverse all outcomes but the result.

Bradford City 1 Stevenage 0 At Valley Parade in League Two, 2010/2011

Consequentialism has a simple message for football: An action is considered to be good if the outcome is good and thus Bradford City’s 1-0 win over a Stevenage side who returned to Hertfordshire with the applause of their supporters ringing in their ears would only be considered to be not only a good result but also a good performance.

Indeed it would be very hard to find fault with many areas of Bradford City’s display. Defensively Peter Taylor hit every note right pre-empting the visitors switch to a more direct football by bringing on Zesh Rehman for today’s captain Shane Duff. Luke Oliver – the man of the match for some today – seemed to struggle in the game but in the end too the plaudits at the heart of a back four that conceded no goals.

Indeed the best chance that Stevenage had came when Luke O’BrienDuff passed back straight to Yemi Odubade holding his head in his hands and not watching as Jon McLaughlan spread massively and dug a foot into the striker to save the day.

The midfield sat atop the back four let little of consequence past with Tom Doherty and Lee Bullock, and later David Syers, blocking and forcing the visitors into what has become known as Hollywood shooting. Football which seldom gets rewards and is often the result of impressive defensive play.

That the Bantams ended up playing a game at Valley Parade in their own half, that so much ground was surrendered to a visiting side who three games ago had never played a Football League game, of no concern to the Consequentialists. The result was good, ergo everything was good.

The decisive goal – when it came – came from a Gareth Evans penalty that was a result of a tidy bit of play that saw the Bantams stretch down the right hand side. The ball cut back to Bullock who took it forward and was cut off by an ill advised lunge by Joel Byrom. Evans put the penalty in with a calmness.

The forward three of Evans, James Hanson and Omar Daley were disjointed in the first half but maintained a discipline in the second that saw them utilised in the pursuit of a clean sheet. The forward line dropped back onto the midfield who dropped back onto the defence who tried to push out and it was all good because the outcome was good.

The penalty aside City enjoyed only one other chance of note – Omar Daley breaking at the start of the second half and pushing the ball past three defenders hitting a fading shot over – but for all the visitor’s attempts they looked more dangerous as a statistic than they did on the field. The chance given over by O’BrienDuff was the best that troubled the Bantams.

Daley and Tom Adeyemi struggled to find a place in the game with Adeyemi poor today by virtue of the fact that his role was so isolated in the side. The attacking midfielder in a team which did not attack he enjoyed a better afternoon scoring the goal last week at Shrewsbury but that that was the one in a defeat, no matter how fruitless it may have seemed his his performance was today a consequentialist would say it was good.

Daley – on the other hand – is one short of a hundred games for the Bantams but cut an isolated figure on the left hand side of an attacking three with the requirement to pull back and bolster the backline curtailing his advances. His role in the side would seem to be to stay as solid as he can and then – if he can – provide the spark that makes the difference.

Any trouble for the Bantams side was marked by the agitated figure of Peter Taylor surging forward from the technical area to blast his team with instructions. Moving like a marionette with its strings tangled Taylor fumed at his side enforcing the defensive unit in an attempt to ensuring that the win was not lost. The big decision of the game – to replace Duff with Rehman – Taylor judged exceptionally well although the consequentialism which dictates the merits of the display also judges the quality of the substitution.

In short everything was good, but cause it ended well.

Nevertheless – and the statement is remarkable when said out loud – the Bantams were booed off for wining the game 1-0. Indeed through the second half that saw City build the wall of a defensive which could not be breeched there was an increasing grumble that Taylor should “sort it out” which – considering the Bantams were in the lead and not especially living on the edge – was to be assumed to be a desire for a more attacking game to be adopted.

The consequentialism as opposed to a deontological approach which would have it that football is for the enjoying and a victory without enjoyment is no victory at all, or rather that it is a bad victory and that it needed rectifying.

All of which send the mind drifting back to a Saturday in February in which Stuart McCall’s Bradford City side battered a Bury team which ended up winning 1-0. McCall bowed to the pressure (which came from both the terraces and the boardroom) and exited after that game with an idea that his deontological approach was not what the club needed.

The club needed – it was said – a manager who won games and evidently Peter Taylor is that manager and one has to wonder what the 57 year old gaffer would make of the reception his side received for the three points they worked hard to win.

Indeed what is one to make of a group of supporters who boo when the team does not win, boo when it does and seemingly will only be sated when the club are winning every game with a flourish, probably scoring with exactly the kind of Hollywood football which did not work for Stevenage?

The descenting voices who complained that the club needed to forgo all in favour of victory are now complaining that the wins are not attractive enough. A lesson for Mark Lawn – perhaps – in the merits and effects of appeasing the malcontent.

The Bantams have a first win of the League season and go to Torquay with points on the board, the unique sound of a Bradford City team being booed off for winning a game rattling in the hollow, empty, otiose Valley Parade.

When a shelf stacker and Guiseley forward put a couple of goals past Bradford (Park Avenue) on new year’s day two years ago one has to wonder if the people at the other Leeds/Bradford game asked the question “How good is James Hanson?”

For sure he had – by all accounts – dominated the Park Avenue defenders but – like Hanson – they were part times and while the Guiseley looked good he did not stride the field like a Colossus. Eventually Mark Ellis had a whisper to Stuart McCall who took him to Bradford City where he became top scorer in his first season.

When watching England beat Hungry on Wednesday night most of the discussion around our sofa was on the young players called up by Fabio Capello and the ramifications of that. There was a contention – by yours truly – that Newcastle United’s much coveted Andy Carroll should have been given a call up. Others thought that (amongst other things on a lively night of discourse) a player could not be judged as good enough for the England side if he had not been proven good enough in the Premier League.

So the question formulated that if Carroll might be considered good enough on the basis of a season not competing against the top class of English football how good could Hanson be?

Rewind to Hanson’s first season at Valley Parade and one recalls on many occasions turning to those around and exclaiming with an amazement that “that guy just does not lose headers!”

Indeed Hanson – when fit and on form – is uncanny in his abilities to rise high, win the ball and feed it accurately to his team mates. Ball winning was a Barry Conlon thing but Barry did not win as often, nor did he head it as accurately, nor did even he put in the effort of James Hanson and when watching last season’s player of the season very few would have put the limits on him that were placed on Conlon.

Conlon – it was said – had to have his best game to be as good as the rest of the side and “good enough” for League Two. Hanson – thus far – has not come up against a League Two defence where he did not enough the balance of play. Long may his superb attitude continue because – at the moment – one doubts that League Two is poising different problems than that game with Park Avenue.

Then came Nottingham Forest a team that – were it not for the randomness of the play-offs – be in the Premier League and the squad to go with it. Hanson – a half time sub – enjoyed as good a return against the twice European Champions as he did against League Two sides, and did in his non-league days. He won more in the air than one would expect against a League Two side, let alone a side who have pretensions for the Premier League.

So how good is James Hanson? Tongue in cheek one might say that if Andy Carroll might wear the three lions then why not give Hanson a call up? If one does not believe that having played in the top flight is essential for England honours – and Steve Bull‘s five in thirteen suggest that a player who has not been at the highest level can offer something to England – then perhaps the national management should be looking at the League Two players who impressively play up when facing a side from a higher division. Scalability in football play is a rare concept.

Returning to the question in hand – and not suggesting that he should be partnered with Wayne Rooney next game – how good is James Hanson?

Certainly he has proved himself able at levels lower than League Two and at League Two itself. His first game against a higher opposition did not curtail his progress so perhaps all one can say is that so far we have yet to see a ceiling on his abilities.

Perhaps though for an answer to the question we need to look not at ourselves, but at the stars. The younger stars of Nottingham Forest that is who were used that night and that manager Billy Davies described as having things come to easy to. Davies’ criticism that a young player has the big car and the nice house too early at his club and as a result they lack the hunger makes a sharp contrast to the two City goalscorers on the evening.

As Davies bemoans the BMWs that his teenagers drive Hanson and fellow goal getter David Syers and men of the match Jon McLaughlin Steve Williams know that a failure will take them back to the days of part time football and a day job. If they ever drive a BMW it is because they have rewarded themselves for a lot of hard work by replacing the broken down Skoda.

There is something utterly refreshing about watching Hanson, Syers, McLauglin and Williams play. When asking how good one of these players can be then the answer is something of a cop out – they can be as good as they want to be.

At present there is a debate on McLaughlin and if he is “good enough” as if this were a binary situation and one which should the player kick back and stop making the effort that has put in him in the position he is in now he would remain at the level he is now.

It is an excellent attitude which has brought them into league football and that same attitude that saw them as the core members of a team which beat Nottingham Forest. Maintain that attitude and it is hard to set a limit on what they can achieve, lose it and they will stop being “good”.

Bradford City play Stevenage At Valley Parade in League Two, 2010/2011

Fresh from his team’s heroic cup win over Nottingham Forest, this weekend Peter Taylor prepares for the first of eight games this season against teams he once managed. Since arriving initially as interim manager in February, much has rightly been made about Taylor’s strong managerial track record. But in-between successes at Gillingham, Hull and Wycombe there have been spells at other clubs which didn’t work out.

Tomorrow’s visitors Stevenage were one of them. It was November 2007 that Taylor became manager of the non-league outfit, an appointment which raised eyebrows around football. After enjoying back-to-back promotions with Hull in 2004 and 2005 and then keeping the Tigers in the Championship, Taylor moved onto Crystal Palace in the summer 2006 but couldn’t lift the recently-relegated Eagles back towards the Premier League. He was sacked after barely a year.

Which is when he popped up at Stevenage. Up-coming manager Mark Stimson had resigned to move to Gillingham, with the Boro third in the Conference and having won the FA Trophy the season before. Taylor was supposed to have signed an 18-month contract, partly due to a friendship with Chief Executive Bob Makin; but the apparent coup of appointing the man who famously made David Beckham England captain failed to see the club’s strong position built upon.

Matthew Kett of fcboro.co.uk told BfB, “Before Stimson left, the club was on the up and really looking forward to a good season. His departure led to a lot of player unrest with a number of players following the manager to Gillingham. Taylor walked into all that so it was not the ideal job. He basically had to re-build the squad from scratch, but the players he brought in were not good enough and we ended the season outside the play-offs after being in the hunt for the whole season.

“There were rumours that Taylor wasn’t very hands on while at Boro, but I don’t think his heart was ever in the job really. Taylor’s style of football was very much a direct approach. The players he signed showed this. We signed a lot of players with little or no technique, including Junior Lewis who seems to follow Taylor wherever he goes. He was one of the worst signings that season.”

With the campaign ending so disappointingly, Taylor didn’t stick around. “He joined us signing an 18 month contract, although this was later palmed off with the excuse that it was a 6 month deal with the view of an 18 month deal if both parties agreed,” added Matthew. “His aim was to get us promoted and then see us through our first League campaign.

“Of course, it didn’t work out that way and the end of the 2007/2008 season was one of the worst times to be a Boro supporter. We were losing every other game and the style of football was awful.

“Taylor came across as if he wasn’t really bothered and you got the feeling that he saw the job as a stop gap before going back into the League the following summer. He even had a poor relationship with the local media, once complaining about the length of an interview. It was 3 minutes by the way.”

That summer Taylor moved back into the Football League and Wycombe, guiding the Chairboys to automatic promotion, Stevenage also recovered from a difficult season, and appear to have little to regret about the way things worked out. “I thought Taylor was a good choice at the time and I’m sure that if he really wanted the job and gave it a good go, he could have at least got us in the play-offs,” concluded Matthew. “However, he didn’t seem to want it and I felt that he was just playing out the games at the end. He wasn’t bothered win, lose or draw.

“As you may know, since then we have re-appointed Graham Westley, which wasn’t a popular decision at the time. Westley was previously with us between 2003-2006, but left under a bit of a cloud. Since coming back he has built a good team and got us promoted as Champions.”

So don’t expect a warm welcome for City’s manager from the visiting fans tomorrow. While Taylor’s popularity levels have probably hit new heights in the wake of the way he managed to turn around Tuesday’s League Cup tie, the opinion of Stevenage fans show just how differently sets of supporters can form a view of a manager.

Paul Jewell, for example, is widely loved by us for what he did. Yet Sheffield Wednesday, Derby and – incredibly – some Wigan fans hold a very different view about the man who took City to the Premiership. Conversely Hearts and Charlton fans have more favourable opinions of Jim Jefferies and Lennie Lawrence respectively, compared to how the duo are perceived at Valley Parade.

What it shows, above all else, is how rare it is that managers replicate previous success when moving to different clubs. Few, if any, get it right everywhere they go, and the likes of Taylor have black marks on their CV they’d rather gloss over in favour of achievements enjoyed elsewhere. The times when it does go wrong should hopefully provide lessons to learn and get right in future. And if the spell at Stevenage didn’t work out for their supporters, one hopes we City fans will enjoy some benefits from a disappointing time.

City go into tomorrow’s match looking for their first points of the season, following the opening day defeat at Shrewsbury. Not only was the downbeat mood firmly washed away by Tuesday’s unexpected victory, but the fact it was achieved with seven changes to the starting line up underlines the strength of the squad available.

A spine is emerging. Jon McLaughlin bounced back from a less-than-convincing game at New Meadow to make a string of outstanding saves against Forest – all the more commendable after he suffered an injury in the second half. In front of him the two centre halves Shane Duff and Steve Williams were outstanding. Williams has made a hugely impressive start to the season and has seized the early initiative to become first choice. Zesh Rehman and Luke Oliver will have to bide their time.

Luke O’Brien or Robbie Threlfall for left back? The latter was torn to shreds by Lionel Ainsworth on Saturday , the former had an excellent evening on Tuesday despite also suffering from lack of defensive cover in front of him at times. Simon Ramsden should get his first opportunity of the season in his natural right back slot.

In midfield Tommy Doherty will probably line up alongside Tom Adeyami, who missed the midweek drama. If Robbie makes left back Luke may be pushed to left midfield, as Omar Daley went off injured half time on Tuesday and may not be risked from the start. Lee Bullock was also subbed at the interval, and the surprisingly terrific display of replacement David Syers may have pushed the former Farsley player – who finds out before Saturday whether his trial has been a success – above him.

Up front goalscoring hero James Hanson looked much sharper and fitter midweek, and was badly missed during the first 45 minutes before he came on. The second half of the game was broadcast live on Radio 5 Live, and summariser Kevin Radcliffe was full of praise for Hanson’s display. Gareth Evans was not involved at all and should be back, with Jake Speight or Louis Moult taking the other spot of a likely three up front formation. Speight in particular made a big impact midweek; and though it’s not the kindest of comparisons, his style of play does remind me of Danny Cadamarteri. Keep him away from the Night Nurse.

Stevenage have made a reasonable start to life in League Two, snatching a last minute equaliser to draw at home to Macclesfield before narrowly losing to Portsmouth in the cup. There main point of interest from a City perspective is the return of hero John Dreyer (assistant manager), who should deservedly receive a great ovation when he walks down the touchline.

This is a big afternoon for Stevenage, as Matthew explained, “I’m really looking forward to it. We had a good record away from home and the team will want to impress in their first away game in the football league. It’s also our first trip to a ‘big’ stadium since we played Leicester in the Cup a few years back. The club is on a high at the moment, so expect a noisy if not big away following.”

With special thanks to Matthew Kett of fcboro.co.uk