City News

Well… Graeme Lee has left, Michael Boulding has announced he wants to take a pay cut and stay at the club, and there’s no news on McLaren or Brandon. We’re into pre-season training now and only one of the “big four” has left the club. It is starting to look as if we might have a rather small squad this season given that signings seem to be dependent on departures of members of this small group of big earners. We have, though, signed a couple of players.

Mullin In. Conlon Out?

According to the Grimsby Telegraph, Barry Conlon is expected to sign for Grimsby Town on loan. Meanwhile, City have signed a lookalike for Conlon from Accrington Stanley until the end of the season (see below for pic). Mullin is Stanley’s record goalscorer, albeit with a scoring rate not dissimilar to Conlon’s (about 1 in 3).

Paul Mullin

The Boulding Brothers Have Signed

New signing: McCall delighted.

This Week’s Headlines

The T&A Website is showing quite a few City stories at the moment. The reason we pulled out of the race to sign Shaw from Halifax was the £60k price-tag, City are planning their own academy in Mexico and… we are going to be on TV on Monday October 20th - away to Darlington (which bags us a nice £10k windfall). And McCall is not going to Hearts.

Team Talk, meanwhile, bring us Starosta’s hunger for first team football and City’s increased wage bill.

Young Right Back – Understudy for Arnison?

City have a young right back named Shaun Densmore, recently released by Everton, joining in with pre-seaon training. The Official BCFC site carries a copy of the T&A story. He’s 19, he was Academy Player-of-the-year in 2006-7 season and he has just completed a one-year senior contract at Everton, where he was unable to break into the first team and ended up playing reserve football. McCall said “Obviously we’re only training at the moment but we’ll have him here for a couple of weeks and see what we think.”

There is also a mention in this story of Darren Moore going to Barnsley.

Transfer News

Following yesterday’s tip-off about Graeme Lee, there is more transfer news. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, “football contracts tend to run until 30th June so it may be that we will get some news this week when City are able to make their moves on out-of-contract players” and here we go:

The T&A reports that City have signed Graeme Lee, goalkeeping target Rob Burch has joined Lincoln (though God only knows why), Lee wants to be a leader in the Wetherall mould and City have signed Paul McLaren, “League One’s most creative player last season”. McLaren managed 13 assists last season in League One, so let’s hope he can at least match that tally this coming season.

So far this pre-season, City have signed Lee, Arnison, Brandon and McLaren from teams in higher divisions. After reading the worries articulated by fans, I’m pleased we have some positive news and I think that the new signings should improve the squad. All we need now is a ‘keeper, another midfielder and maybe one more striker and we should just about have a squad of players capable of challenging for a play-off position. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks we will sign more players of the calibre of Lee, Arnison, Brandon and McLaren.

Wiki pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Arnison

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Brandon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McLaren

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Lee_%28footballer%29

More on City’s pre-season

Arnison is pleased to have signed for a club with a large fanbase and his move is partly due to Greg Abbott. Via the T&A.

Bullock is looking forward to Pre-season.

City haven’t signed anyone yet, apart from the three players already mentioned in previous blog posts (Arnison, Bullock and McLaughlin). However, football contracts tend to run until 30th June so it may be that we will get some news this week when City are able to make their moves on out-of-contract players. Darren Moore, unfortunately, looks likely to go to Leicester City but Rob Burch is still a possibility for the vacant goalkeeping slot and McCall apparently has back-up options if the likes Moore and Boulding don’t sign. Moore might not be needed if Graeme Lee is signing: Team Talk.

Friday’s Bradford City News… and Something From Mr Sensible

Via the T&A, three stories on City in the transfer market. The first is about City waiting on four transfer targets, the second story carries the news that Alex Rhodes has signed for Rotherham and the third relates to possible compensation for Luke Medley who has signed for Barnet and includes the news of Eddie Johnson signing a short-term deal at a League 1 club believed to be Crewe and a footnote pointing out that City’s first pre-season friendly against Harrogate Town has been cancelled.

The Medley article has a comment from a ‘Mr Sensible’ who writes: “Whatever City get it will be more than they have spent and if they get nothing it will be what they have spent to date. Not even dipped into the Fighting Fund.Wonder what next weeks promises will be.” The Rhodes/Rotherham article has this from Mr Sensible: “Good luck to Alex. Things can only be better for him away from VP” and the other article has this: “Here we go again with the usual hype. Lets have some proof of action and not another four weeks of Beckett, Moore. I understand Ronaldo might be available (Ronnie at Grimethorpe).” It looks like Mr Sensible might be the kind of person who gets his kicks from being provocative on message boards and blogs, but it could just be that he is a genuine City fan. The reason there is some doubt as to whether Mr Sensible is a troll or a fan is that City fans can be so negative about the team, the players, the management and coaching staff as well as the board. They are also prone to spreading gossip – hence this story on Billy Topp: Silly Billy Rumours.

On a more positive note, someone is obviously trying to maintain their optimism – apparently Omar Daley is the new Peter Beagrie. This comment is one fans might like to bear in mind when watching the team this coming season:

Confidence appeared to be fragile and the laid back manner interpreted as lazy, with bucket loads of abuse flying in his direction from the stands clearly counter-productive.

Let’s start the season with a clean slate and give all the players at City a chance to show us what they can do. Hopfeully they won’t let us down.

No News is Good News… I Hope!

From the Telegraph & Argus: McCall urges patience. I’m hoping this means that the reason we haven’t had any news recently (bar the Arnison signing) is that, as a club, we are playing our cards close to our chest. This story is worth reading for the comments alone. The inaptly named ‘Mr Sensible’ seems to be either (a) playing devil’s advocate (b) an internet troll or (c) a Leeds fan. This is word-for-word: “Face facts A failing club with bad ideas and brain(limited)washed fans.” It’s a bit rich for Mr Sensible to accuse City fans of having limited brains when he writes like that. Punctuate boy, punctuate!

Less happily, it seems Boulding is going up a league rather than join BCFC. Story here.

There’s more City news on the Boy From Brazil site here: BfB, including: the news that McCall is still interested in ex-Sheffield Wednesday ‘keeper Rob Burch; the interesting fact that Arnison was wanted by Port Vale and Darlington – but still chose to join City; and this story about Chester’s transfer embargo that might rule them out of the running for Luke Beckett. Keep an eye out later this week for a post on last season’s stats and what they mean.

Summer Signings

OK, so not much movement on the signings front – but at least we’ve got rid of some of the dead wood. In the summer, City released thirteen players (unlucky for some). The thirteen comprised: striker Eddie Johnson, defender Darren Williams and midfielder Paul Evans, goalkeepers Donovan Ricketts, Ben Saynor and Jamie Waite, local boys Tom Penford and Craig Bentham (who have both gone to Farsley Celtic), Scott Phelan, Alex Rhodes, Luke Morgan, David Brown, and Damian Hopkins. The full BBC story on released players is here: BBC story and the revamped T&A website has the news on Farsley’s new midfield duo here: Bentham and Penford: here. The players I was most disappointed to see leaving were probably Penford and Rhodes as I thought Penford actually played well last season and in my opinion Rhodes looked to have potential. The player I was most surprised to see leave was Eddie Johnson – at least we knew he was robust enough to play fourth division football.

Right, on to the actual signings now. Arnison is, by all accounts, a decent player. I can’t recall ever seeing him play to be honest so I look forward to finding out for myself if he’s any good or not! Brandon needs no introductions to City fans and McLaughlin the new reserve ‘keeper is also an unknown quantity. So, er… not a very informative first post then. Sorry.