More About Nicky Law
Stuart McCall tells us not to get too excited at the prospect of Willy Topp coming to Bradford City - like his insistence that the Chilean be called Billy not Willy one can expect his words to fall on deaf ears.
Topp is expected to feature on the bench for the League Two game with Rotherham United - the very typification of a dour would be derby game - and for the time he cools his heels to the second he strikes in anger in claret and amber the thoughts of all will be on this latests great white hope.
Topp follows a path along the decline of this club that started with Benito Carbone who promised the abilities that club needed - in the case of Topp and Staurt McCall’s Bradford City those abilities are obviously needed - but for a multitude of reasons were not delivered upon. Topp would do well to follow Carbone’s example - the little Italian gave his all for City every game - rather than the path of Juanjo.
For Topp and Juanjo - Jim Jefferies perfect playmaker - are aligned. Both come into teams that lack inspiration and both are looked on to turn around the fortunes of the club. Such big aspirations on small shoulders Topp - like Juanjo - cannot make a team no matter how well he plays.
And it is oft forgot that for every wretched performance the Spaniard put in his offered moments of impressiveness - his debut winning goal springs to mind - that showed that when he wanted to, he could.
Had he wanted to for Nicky Law then Juanjo could have changed the path of Bradford City. Law’s meat and spuds variety of football was always going to isolate the tricky former Hearts man but more dedication could have seen him win over supporters and managers and - assuming his flashes could be turned into performances - provide the excitement that was lacking from that City team.
Topp comes into the same situation. City are trundling along and one can imagine that the 12,000 on the trundle are waiting for something to make noise about, something to get excited about. Topp - regardless of McCall’s insistence - carries that weight.
One hopes he carries it well, or at least better than others have.
Ben Muirhead has been released by Bradford City bringing to an end a turbulent five year connection between player and club that say him signed, released, signed again and go from favourite to failure to favourite to great white hope before his career with the club petered out.
Muirhead was signed from Manchester United and wasted no time in impressing with his right wing play that recalled the buccaneering style of Jamie Lawrence. At Turf Moor he ripped Burnley apart in a 2-1 win and he looked a huge threat for Nicky Law’s team.
However for all his exciting front foot play Ben had a number of flaws in his game - he would give the ball away when charging forward rather than win continued possession, he would try the impossible cross rather than winning the odd throw in - and these problems soon saw him benched as Law’s team struggled and Nicky Summerbee offered more crossing.
Nevertheless his flair cameos made sure he stayed popular and under Bryan Robson one Manchester United number seven told another how to play and he returned a Ben all about the end product.
He was the Ben Muirhead of forcing corners and tidy football and for a while that seemed to impress some however as his game improved the tide seemed to turn and - as famously identified by The City Gent’s John Watmough - “Ben” left and was replaced by “Muirhead”.
“Muirhead” was released as the club’s money problem mounted and Bryan Robson exited - he seemed to show most improvement under the famously good coach/bad manager that was Robson - only to be signed again as the club exited administration and start the next season well loved for his loyalty.
However while Muirhead was a better player for the team he seemed to lack the excitement of the flying winger Ben and he was not a regular feature in Colin Todd’s teams. By the time Jermaine Johnson and Omar Daley - both of whom could stand accused of all the worst and best points of Ben’s early play - arrived at the club the sun had set on Ben’s career at City and he was loaned to Rochdale.
His release from Bradford City comes at the end of that season and no doubt Rochdale will be interested in signing him - he scored three in nine games - after which we will no doubt see him again next year.
At such point - with the distance of opposition - we may discover if that winger is “Muirhead” or “Ben” after all.
Prefacing this by saying I like The City Gent and Chris Armstrong who runs The City Gent website we at BfB were interested to see that website use it’s front page to make a case for the prosecution against Colin Todd calling for the City manager to be sacked.
The content of the article runs through a damning list of “crimes” and makes it clear that Todd should be held accountable for the teams performance - a view I personally thing always lets the team off with ineffectual displays but one I respect the writer’s right to hold.
However such talk is neither especially interesting or especially new. Indeed City fans need only cast minds back to October 2003 when the same comments were being made about Nicky Law.
That those comments may - or may not, depending on your opinion - have been proved true is hardly important. What is important and what would be needed to convince me that the Todd Out protests had enough merit to be worth supporting is an answer to the questions asked back when Law was sacked.
For all the talk about from City fans about the relative merits - or lack of merit - of Todd and his position at the club I have yet to hear anything approaching a convincing argument which tells me that sacking this manager would not be as ineffectual in halting City’s decline as axing Law was.
Genuinely curiously I wonder why would sacking Colin Todd improve the club any more than sacking Nicky Law? Or Jim Jefferies? Or Chris Hutchings? Why would the next manager turn our fortunes around when Bryan Robson’s arrival did not? Or when the return of popular coach Terry Yorath as manager in 1988 could not?
By anyone’s yardstick - including the one Colin Todd applies to Sven Goran Eriksson - Todd would be overdue the bullet from the vast majority of jobs in football. What I am interested in - and what we as supporters of this club should be interested in - is the future of the club beyond the short term buzz of a sack and search.
How will the job of managing Bradford City be different for the next manager than it is for this one and it was for the last one, and the one before that, and before him and before him?