Ronnie Moore and the way the world works these days

Ronnie Moore will be the next manager of Bradford City – or so the jester that is Tommy Doherty said as he continues his banter with various City fans using the social networking website Twitter.

For those who do not follow @tdocs14 the former City midfielder stood charged by a section of City fans of – avoiding the colourful language – not being very good and being about to retire and midfielder responded in kind with the odd vulgarity, a decent pun here and there, and a boast or two about how he would be spending most of his days playing golf from now on. Wilde called it a good walk ruined, you know.

The highlight of this exchange came after Doherty declared he was back to be at home and away from Bradford two which there came a retort which Wilde would have considered half decent going on to say what a shame it would be that the midfielder had exited the City because today they were unveiling the statue to him. Touché.

Doherty’s joke about Moore – and it was just as Joke as elsewhere on Twitter former Bantam and Ronnie’s son Ian Thomas-Moore called it 100% untrue – would have been said and gone some years ago but the modern world creates a feedback loop around such rumours. A joke on Twitter is written down without humour – or even one of those :-) smiley faces – and bookmakers keen to make sure they do not lose out start to cut odds when loose money is placed on Moore’s arrival at VP.

Cutting odds is a result of betting but – rather than the commercial enterprise it is – bookmaking seems to be looked at as a kind of modern soothe saying. If ten people in an hour were to go into a William Hill in Glasgow and bet on Elvis being alive then the usual pattern would be picked up and the King’s return would come down from 10,000-1. It is the mechanics of the business. If there is a risk of paying of a lot then the odds come down. There is no measure of probability, just of risk should the eventuality came to pass.

So a joke from Twitter leads to Ronnie Moore becoming the favourite for the City job despite the fact that as a manager he has stated that he would prefer Bradford City not to be in the Football League (something he could achieve was a poor performance) and that leads to Bradford City fans who look at the odds reporting back that Moore is much fancied, and assuming that there must be a credibility to the idea. It is the feedback loop in action. Like shouting into a tunnel the sound echoes around and amplifies but is not repeated. It is still just one sound and no more true for the reverberations as when it was first uttered.

Football seems especially susceptible to this kind of repeating rumour which gains the currency of fact quickly and the next Bradford City manager will be faced with the same rumours and whispers that the previous two full time ones have had. Stuart McCall had a number of “final games” and Peter Taylor was reportedly in the last chance saloon nearly constantly. None of these rumours have ever been confirmed and none came to pass but the fact they reverberated around wrote them into history as truths. They undermined the manager, without every being validated for accuracy.

More important for the next manager – who will be charged with making a team for promotion once more – is to ensure that the echoing effect does not undermine his team. @RHannah10 is a blast on Twitter at the moment – so positive about his move to City and keeping us up to date with his last week working as a gardener which strikes one as rather charming, Carbone never having to work his notice – but a bad game and a negative tweet and how does the manager try keep Hannah’s confidence when the echoes are repeating negativity at him?

The way the world works these days – and the way football works – the difference between players is mostly in the head. Tell a guy he is useless and – in time – he will prove you right. Whomever takes over as City manager has to work out a way of ensuring his players are not exposed to this echoing effect which eats into their mental resilience and makes them worse players.

Because should he fail to do so he might find @RHannah10 having a laugh about who his replacement will be.

The rule of thumb for loan players

Dean Furman’s display against Wycombe Wanderers was as close to being the complete midfield performance as I have seen at Valley Parade since Stuart McCall left for Sheffield United.

Furman was the exception in my rule of thumb – expressed often on this publication – that the club should favour players we own over players we are borrowing. Furman’s future is very much about bedding into the squad at Ibrox rather than staying at Valley Parade although there is little harm in asking if we can borrow him in 2009/2010.

Furman’s midfield partner Nicky Law Jnr I did not exempt from that loan player rule, nor Zesh Rehman, nor Steve Jones. All three were impressive in the Wycombe win, none of them belong to Bradford City.

However unlike Furman all three of those players are contracted to play for the Bantams until the end of the season and are then looking for new deals.

All of which embarrasses the rule of thumb which says that the wanderering loanee has no reason to put in the fabled 110% for City when he will be back at his home club in a month and Valley Parade will be a distant memory.

Remember names like Ian Moore, Kevin Wilson and Mike Newell? No, Neither do I and it is because while they put in some work they lacked the extra mile that the likes of Barry Conlon put in.

Conlon is out of contract with City at the end of the season as is Rhys Evans. Both are looking to impress Stuart McCall and have something on the table for next season and in a way they are in the same position as Jones, Rehman and Law Jnr. Not on loan but with playing for Bradford City and with three months to impress their way into a new deal.

Rehman and Law – as with Furman – are doing as much and putting in as much effort as Conlon (perhaps almost, who puts in more?) and Evans (I would argue that Jones is giving all he can too, although it is less evident owing ot the type of player he is) towards Bradford City winning matches.

Balancing the squad, building inclusion for the loan players and not putting the current squad’s nose out of joint, settling players who lack stability. All man management jobs failure in which shows on the field.

So perhaps the key to a good loan player is length of time they are at the club – I’m a firm believer that the longer someone is bedded into a club the better they will play – and the length they have left on their current contract but I suspect it is in equal parts about finding the right personalities.

It would seem that the current selection are just that and credit to that goes to the management team at Valley Parade.