More About 2007/2008
Bradford City 2 Wrexham 1 - League One 2007/2008
The days have past since the blast of Luke Medley’s left foot that change the course of City’s 2-1 win over Wrexham - probably more when all is told - and allowed Stuart McCall to taste victory at Valley Parade as a manager for the first time but the taste in the air is just as sweet.
Medley has been talking about his first kick - nice to have your first kick be one of the best goals at Valley Parade in years - and McCall has been speaking of relief now the pressure of hunting the first win is over and everyone else has fallen into line, rightly so. Like the first springs of love if you can not enjoy an eighteen year old lashing in a debut goal with his first kick then you can not enjoy anything.
Medley’s goal came from an impressive pass down the left flank by Kyle Nix whose contribution to the first win of the season can not be under-estimated. Pulled from Sheffield United by McCall Nix lost the headlines but did much to convince of his worth coming in on the left flank and getting to grips with the lack of width at Valley Parade to use the ball well pushing inside to the hardworking midfield of Eddie Johnson and Paul Evans. Evans was once again Imperious. The best player in League Two wears Bradford City’s number four shirt.
Nix’s ready supply of creative movement balanced out Eddie Johnson’s hard working but ultimately unprobing midfield work that is a worry. Johnson’s graft deserved a reward and as Nix tried to beat one too many bodies on the edge of the Wrexham box at the start of a second half that followed the Bantams best of the first twenty then even run of the last forty-five Johnson snapped onto the lose ball and hit hard and definitely into the lower left hand corner of the keeper’s goal. Johnson - like Andrew Cooke before him - had his goals celebrated for the obvious effort he puts in. Any player who works that hard deserves a reward.
Conversely what is to be said of Omar Daley the most enjoyable dribbler one could hope to see but often found wanting when pointing in the opposite direction. McCall obviously wants Daley’s attacking flair and more often than not - although not always - Daley does enough coming back to merit his inclusion but rather unfortunately for all when the winger is required to track back he is rather ineffectual in his efforts. Exhibit A is the noodle limbed wafted at a ball crossed by former Bantam Michael Proctor to another Neil Roberts who headed an equaliser. There is a call to be made on Daley and one suspects that McCall might accept his deficiencies at the back for his forward play and - for once - I’m not sure that is entirely the wrong idea should Daley maintain a level of effort.
Defensively City worried over Darren Williams - who will miss four weeks injured after falling in the first half - but a shorn Simon Ainge looks to be made of the right stuff for the step up and impressed at right back. The back five look anything but uncrackable and one hopes that long term unification could bring more solidity. Perhaps one is worrying over nothing, Donovan Ricketts was rarely troubled.
McCall will be troubled by the ratio of chances to goals - Barry Conlon works very hard but never looks like finding the goal - but will hope that the likes of Medley can make do until a rhythm is found and his team looks on the brink comes of age.
Wolves 2 Bradford City 1 - League Cup First Round 2007/2008
Shrewsbury Town 1 Bradford City 0 - League Two - 2007/2008
Those that saw it said it was typically City to battle with Championship side Wolves head to head for the lion’s share of the game but then give up the chance of a lead with two goals in four minutes at the start of the second half that cut the chance of turning the toughest of away fixtures this first round could throw up into a victory to next to nothing and while Kyle Nix and Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu did their chances of long term deals the power of good by combining for the last goal the Bantams day was done.
Those who saw it gave the Bantams credit but Stuart McCall’s first game from distance read like a worrying City display. Barry Conlon’s spurned header in the second half against Macclesfield Town has set his image in the mind as a target man who does not know where the net it. Those that saw it will tell you that without Conlon City struggle to keep the ball and that his profligacy compared to hold up play is the reason he is not playing at a level higher but the removal after an hour and subsequent benching for Saturday speak much from distance.
Worryingly the speak whispers about McCall too and one hopes he does not fall into Colin Todd’s most annoying feature. Even the former gaffer’s advocates were irritated by Todd’s inability to stick with a forward partnership. As City were going down at Wolves Andy Cooke was getting the injury that would keep him out of the weekend Shrewsbury game against the Bantams. Cooke’s work rate was never questioned and he could have hoped for more of a chance from Todd rather than the constant flux of forwards. On Saturday Nathan Joynes would be partnering Ndumbu-Nsungu.
To McCall’s credit he has already worked out that the best back fours are constantly selected and Donovan Ricketts behind Darren Williams, David Wetherall, Mark Bower and Paul Heckingbottom with Paul Evans sitting on top is as good a back six as will be found in League Two. Wolves was always going to be tough but Williams’s 8th minute foul on Marc Pugh aside - one sometimes worries about Williams’s pace - City did enough to suggest that conceding goals in open play lacks inevitability.
Indeed McCall’s midfield of Evans behind the hardworking Eddie Johnson - hardworking being employed as a term to ignore a worrying lack of creativity from him which Nix seems able to remedy without the graft of the former Manchester United striker - with two wide men seem able to create chances for the forward pairing but worryingly those chances occur too far down field for the liking of those who saw them.
Everything in snapped at because the ball is not delivered into killer areas often enough. City need the constancy of delivery that a Nicky Summerbee gave Dean Windass or a Peter Beagrie gave Lee Mills to build a twenty goal haul for a striker on. Omar Daley is a frustrating joy, Alex Rhodes looks capable, Joe Colbeck gives everything and often deserves more than he gets but none have the repetition of crossing accuracy that builds confidence for strikers and so McCall and Wayne Jacobs must go to the drawing board and behind to look for a way to shift City’s final ball ten yards further forward. Daley’s twenty-five yarders are speculative - his fifteen yarders would weigh in with ten goals a season. Sometime the gap between success and failure is an inch, sometimes it is ten yards and McCall must work at going that distance. He tried by pushing Joynes behind GNN but the Barnsley loanee was starved of the ball leaving the jury out as to his suitability for such a position.
As it was City had enough to take something from the game that was settled by David Hibbert - a cameo player for the Bantams last term - scoring a penalty. Paul Evans had a keeper’s amazing save to curse once again and Paul Heckingbottom struck a post. Nothing that three points against Wrexham in front of a crowded Valley Parade will not cure from a morale point of view and - perhaps - Peter Thorne from a striking berth as the experienced hitman looks to get back to fitness.
–
With the aid of Roland Harris
Bradford City 1 Macclesfield Town 1 - League Two 2007/2008
After eight minutes Francis Green of Macclesfield - obviously not having been shoved a copy of the mythic script that goes with events such as Stuart McCall’s first game as Bradford City boss - screwed a long range low drive past Donovan Ricketts for the opening goal of the season at Valley Parade which would ultimately end in the Bantams 14th - but least disheartening - consecutive home game without a win.
That the Bantams rarely looked like conceding to a Macclesfield Town side that opened with first day endeavour and ended with the kind of two lines of four and willingness to shed blood for the cause - not their blood of course but blood nevertheless - said much about City’s task this season. A lesson in what is in front of the Bantams in more says that one.
City had the lion’s share of the ball, the game and the chance. Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu - GNN if you will - equalised for McCall’s side after Barry Conlon had seen his penalty saved just before the half time whistle blew. GNN was booked for his shirt off celebrations following his rebound pounce which - while technically correct - baffled many including no doubt Carl Regan who had given away said penalty for a two footed tackle on GNN eight yards from goal when the Congolese player had nothing but the keeper to beat. Regan got the ball but the two footed lunge has long been outlawed in football in the same way that the head tackle - while a very effective way of making sure man and ball are separated in Rugby League - is strictly forbidden.
Eight yards out, GNN clean through. The rules of football make it very clear that just as GNN must be booked for removing shirt in celebration Regan must be sent off. Welcome - one and all - to League Two: The Wild West of football.
Remember the John Ford movies where Sheriff Gary Cooper or John Wayne on a better day would dish out justice not on the basis of law and what was written as write and wrong but more on the grounds of what would keep the peace of the town. Referee Graham Horwood wore no star badge but as with officials at this level behaved in the same way. Luke Dimech handled clearly in the penalty area before the goal but he probably didn’t mean it so play was waved on. Gareth Evans and Terry Dunfield spent much of the second half trying to break Donovan Ricketts in half but this is League Two yeah? The peace was kept with smatterings of yellow cards but consistency was never considered above the dramatic flourish for effect no matter how many times David “Premiership” Wetherall bounced a ball off a visitor who on refusing to retreat or standing over a free kick is mandated for a booking Horwood was having none of it because this is League Two and we have our own way of doing things down here.
Green’s goal aside City have a way of doing things which was mostly pleasing. McCall is building a team with a directness about it and that team plays off the excellence of is avatar Paul Evans who was everything that the number four shirt at Bradford City should be today: Passionate and able to raise his team mates around him, skilful and able to play a generous ball, strong on pitch and on the ball. Evans is this team’s Stuart McCall with bending free kicks two of which came out of the locker today and both could have resulted in goals and it is a pleasure to watch him play once more.
City’s thirteen today featured not one bad performance. Barry Conlon holds a ball up with power and while he looked less likely to trouble the net that Lee Mills a player in his style has been missing for sometime. Alex Rhodes on the left wing is still getting up to speed - or so we are told - but is a great find thus far with a less speedy more skilful display. He is more Beagrie than Muirhead and all the better for it. Omar Daley tried - nice work their Stuart - and Eddie Johnson received a half time rocket and got more involved after the break. The back four were not at fault all day and Donovan Ricketts had little to do which was a good job considering the ear snappingly horrible sound of him falling and needing his foot strapping up - an injury rather shamefully exploited by some nasty tackling by Macclesfield player. Invaliding goalkeepers out of the game should not be a part of football at any level but Ricketts continued with few tests on his agility.
All that was lacking was the second goal for the Bantams despite Conlon’s smart play feeding Daley who dragged his shot wide. More clear cut chances would have sealed a win no doubt but such things will come and on the day when the Bantams walked into what was in many ways the last chance saloon - this McCall/Cheap Season Tickets/Mark Lawn thing has to work or what it the future for the club - they emerged on the road to gold.
The path to that gold may depend rather too much on the random peace keeping of the Sheriffs.