A creditable performance saw each City man play his part in a 3-0 victory over the Spireites.

Both teams looked to attack and the first half saw quite an open game, pleasing on the eye - and one that I imagine would have been enjoyable for a neutral. Scott Neilson probably provided more entertainment than any other player in the first half with some promising runs and the winger was unlucky to see his left-foot shot saved well by the Chesterfield goalkeeper.

Having been ‘turned-round’ by the Chesterfield captain, City began by attacking the Kop in the first half and immediately set Neilson off on a run down the right hand side. Flynn opened the scoring (right in front of us, as we sit just to the right of the goal at the Kop end) when he cut inside and hit a perfectly placed shot past Lee and my irrational fear that City would perform poorly or be unlucky kicking ‘the wrong way’ in the first half began to subside.

Eastwood made an excellent save at a crucial stage in the second half to deny a Chesterfield player, and City promptly went up the other end and scored through Neilson to go 2-0 up. Rehman and Williams deserve credit for some fine defending and keeping a potentially dangerous Chesterfield side from breaching City’s defence. Bateson looked reasonably solid, while Luke O’Brien seemed to struggle with his passing – but looked very good when attacking the right side of Chesterfield’s defence, beating players on several occasions without quite being able to find a City man with his crosses.

In midfield, Bullock looked every inch the solid defensive midfielder some City fans have suspected for a while he might make (I have previously been critical of his performances when playing in the more advanced role McCall seemed to see as Bullock’s best position) and performed well – unfussy, accurate with his passing, and firm in the tackle. James O’Brien was fairly quiet and did not, in my opinion, perform as well as Bullock or Flynn but could be described as ‘competent’. Flynn, meanwhile, seems to get better by the game and deserved his goal (particularly given the decent efforts in the recent game against Burton that saw the City midfielder out of luck).

Scott Neilson showed much promise and entertained us with his dribbling skills, willingness to run at players, and accurate shooting. He may not be as fast as other recent City wingers (Daley, Colbeck, Muirhead), but he seems to have plenty of ability and may turn out to be a better player than Colbeck or Muirhead (memories of Daley are becoming fonder the longer he is absent – for some reason, I seem to have no recollection of all the criticism he has apparently been subject to in the past). Hanson performed manfully and perhaps should have won more free-kicks as Chesterfield attempted to prevent him winning the ball in the air, but this is arguable – perhaps he just needs a little more strength and a little more experience in order to get the better of older, wiser players such as Robert Page. Evans impressed me again with his willing running, and he seems to have sufficient strength and pace to cause defenders problems at this level – a combination that Michael Boulding seems to lack, being too easily pushed off the ball at times.

Substitute Chris Brandon’s late finish was the icing on the cake and made the three points inevitable. Sharry also came off the bench, looked lively, and passed the ball well – providing the assist for Scott Neilson’s late shot against the post.

City’s new-look formation sometimes seems a little lop-sided, but this does not appear to be a problem. James O’Brien and Gareth Evans were able between them to provide sufficient cover for Luke O’Brien on the left-hand side for City and the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation does not seem to suffer from an inability to get men forward, as has been the case in the past. Playing three central midfielders in O’Brien, Flynn, and Bullock seems to give us a fighting chance when it comes to controlling games (and I think O’Leary would fit in well to this midfield three if Bullock or O’Brien were indisposed, with Sharry a possible understudy for Flynn). According to the BBC’s report, City had 57% of the possession and most of the shots and corners – this was not always the case over the last two seasons at home, when McCall tried to play with a more traditional 4-4-2 with two out-and-out wingers. Perhaps the new formation and the new players will continue to control home games and bring success to the club. This is something I hope for rather than expect, but I am optimistic about our future at the moment having seen effort and enthusiasm put in against Port Vale, Lincoln, and Burton being replicated against Chesterfield, but with a much better outcome.

In my last post on this blog, I briefly discussed the part that chance plays in football. I also pointed out that it is difficult for us fans to judge what happens during games – and to predict what will happen as a result. While catching up on my reading last night, I noted that on the Boy from Brazil website there is an article that refers to a “half-time tactical switch from Lincoln” that exploited a weakness in the way City had lined-up. This tactical switch was the substitution of Scott Kerr for Andy Hutchinson. A little later, I saw on Ceefax that Scott Kerr was a doubt for the next Lincoln game, having been substituted at half-time during the match at Bradford with a recurrence of a back injury. If Jason McKeown is right and the substitution played a part in City’s defeat, then it was luck rather than good judgement on the part of Peter Jackson that enabled Lincoln to take advantage of City’s tactics. Had Scott Kerr not suffered a recurrence of his injury, Andy Hutchinson would not have played. (The BBC website has a report of Lincoln’s injury problems.)

We fans rarely know whether a substitution is purely tactical or if there is an element of fitness in the manager’s choice – unless a player is obviously injured we will assume that a substitution is tactical, but we do not have the knowledge of the player’s condition that is available to the manager and physio. Sometimes a player will perform well and fans will be baffled to see him replaced – near the end of the Port Vale game, some fans were surprised to see O’Leary replaced by O’Brien. O’Leary later said that he had tired towards the end of the match due to a lack of football in pre-season (O’Leary is also said to have been carrying a toe injury – which flared up again before the Lincoln game).

We all see the game differently – that much is clear. Unfortunately, little else is clear. Should Thorne have been subbed last night? Was Boulding the man to save the game? Should the team have been booed for putting in effort but failing to get reward for that effort? Who should have taken the penalty? Is our narrow formation the reason we are yet to score?

Every fan has the right to have their say, but given the contradictory opinions I hear at every home match what value can be placed on the views of football fans (specifically Bradford City fans, in this instance)?

While we are all wise after the event (hindsight is 20/20, dontcha’ know), it is very difficult to predict in advance: which tactics will work best with the personnel available; which players will show the best form and frame of mind; who might be able to change a game in our favour (as an ‘impact sub’). We also lack inside knowledge – which players are carrying niggling injuries, who has been distracted by off-the-field matters, or other “unknown unknowns”. I think I’ve yet to hear a fan correctly predict which player will perform best in any given football match (although the outcome is subjective), while correct predictions of scorelines and scorers are almost equally rare (and this time the outcome is objective fact). Let’s face it – if football fans were that good at predictions, the bookies would all have gone bust by now.

Accepting that we are poor at predicting outcomes of football matches, I have to question why fans believe that their after-the-event opinions – for example, of what would have happened if only the manager had decided on the substitution they would have preferred him to have made – are valid. Sometimes the crowd (or elements of the crowd) are actually proved wrong. Anyone remember a section of the fans booing the introduction of Barry Conlon in one particular game? Bazinho proceeded to make the boo-boys eat their words by scoring City’s goal. I remember hearing fans around me on the Kop shouting in response to the subsitution “that’s shit McCall – shit”, making similar comments, and booing as the substitution was made. These fans believed that Conlon was not the man to make a difference on that occasion, but those fans were wrong. Yet the same people continue to believe that if McCall made different decisions (those they would have made themselves if they were manager, presumably) then City would see better outcomes. Frankly, they’re kidding themselves. This is only possible because their decisions remain hypothetical – they didn’t happen, so we cannot see (or judge) the outcome of them.

A further note

One thing that, as fans, we don’t seem to take into account is the part that chance plays in results. Against Lincoln, we could so easily have scored – shots saved by their keeper, goal-bound efforts that beat the keeper blocked by a defender, a penalty saved by the lad we tried to sign as our goalkeeper. Luck matters. I’m no statistician and I won’t pretend I understand risk and chance, but there is a website, understandinguncertainty.org, that has calculated that in the Premier League in 2008/09:

22% of the variability is due to chance and 78% due to genuine differences between the teams. This is a low contribution of chance, comparable with that in Greece and Turkey where the leagues contain a wide range of talent. Some leagues, in contrast, have contained teams of essentially equal ability where the league positions at the end of the season could be totally attributable to chance: for example the Scottish 2nd Division in 2002-2003 in which after 36 games each the teams all finished between 36 and 59 points: poor Cowdenbeath were at the bottom but the points show that they were really no worse than any other team, just the unluckiest.

22% of the variability in the Premier League is due to chance, and in other leagues where there are not significant gaps in quality (League Two, for example, hardly has a “big four” that are obviously better than the other teams in the division as has been the case in recent Premier League history) chance plays a bigger part. While commentators may claim that luck tends to even out over a season, I am not convinced that this is the case. Maybe luck plays a bigger part than they (or most football fans – including myself) realise.

The first home game of the season was a fairly uneventful affair, but a more enjoyable one than I had expected. Of the new signings, Eastwood was not seriously tested by City’s opponents and it may take a few games before any judgement can be reached on the loan ‘keeper. Williams made an impressive home debut and looked comfortable in his new surroundings, while Ramsden also played well. O’Leary looked bright and did a good job in midfield, picking the ball up from defenders and looking to start attacking moves (while also being unafraid to “put a foot in” in the centre of midfield). Hanson seems to have made a good start to his City career and put in one very good cross from the left in the first half, while also winning his fair share of headers. Evans came on for Boulding and looks to have the strength that is required of forwards in this division (although his time on the pitch was fairly brief). James O’Brien was not on long enough to make an impact, while Flynn played reasonably well without making a big impression.

City played well in patches and in my opinion bossed the second half. Some good passing football was played, with all outfield players looking quite comfortable on the ball. Brandon showed some nice touches and linked up well with others in attacking situations, improving as the game went on. Boulding (like Flynn) was a bit quiet for my liking (although perhaps they depend on City getting them more of the ball in the right positions), and Thorne led the line well. Luke O’Brien was not at his best today, but made some good runs down the left flank – particularly in the second half – and even a substandard O’Brien performance is better than that produced by many of the players seen in Claret (or Claret and Amber) in recent times. Zesh Rehman was far better than at Notts County (although I am comparing a ‘live’ performance with what I’ve heard and read about his showing in the Midlands on the opening day). Colbeck, like J O’Brien, had insufficient time to impress but looked eager to do so. The best chances were probably those which fell to Peter Thorne and James Hanson, but neither could find the net.

City looked a bit narrow at times, with the two full-backs more likely to take on the defenders and put a cross in than the nominal wide men Hanson and Brandon. They did, though, look solid and play neat football. Given the lowered expectations that a reduced budget and two hefty defeats have brought about, a 0-0 draw – that was pleasing on the eye for the most part – was probably about as good as fans had expected and I for one walked out of Valley Parade after the final whistle in a good mood. Despite the wet and gloomy weather.

It feels like the season started today, and we must continue to play in the manner that we did today – with players going out there to work hard and to play good football as a team rather than as individuals (which was not always the case last season).

GK Eastwood 6
RB Ramsden 7
CB Williams 7
CB Rehman 6
LB O’Brien 6
RM Brandon 6
CM O’Leary 7
CM Flynn 6
LM Hanson 6
CFThorne 6
CF Boulding 6

Subs: Colbeck n/a, Evans 6, J O’Brien n/a.

Well, as far as I’m concerned the answer to the question I posed in the title is “no”. Deciding a manager’s future based on a single game would be ridiculous in my opinion. In 2004, Newcastle United decided to sack Bobby Robson on the basis of the first four matches of the season despite his performances in previous seasons (fourth, third and fifth in the Premier League). Sacking McCall now would probably not be quite as irrational a decision as that taken by Freddy Shepherd, but think for a moment about how Newcastle have fared since Robson left. Souness, Roeder, Allardyce, Keegan, Kinnear, Hughton, and Shearer have all been in the manager’s office at Newcastle since then and the finishing positions in the Premier League under the managers following Robson have been 14, 13, 7, 12 and 18. The consequences of irrational decisions taken too hastily can be long-lasting and serious. Sacking a manager after one match is irrational – performances should be evaluated over a longer period.

I’ve made the point before that managers given time to succeed are more likely to do so. Ferguson has been at Manchester United for 23 years and Wenger at Arsenal for 13. What of Jesus Gil’s tenure at Atletico Madrid. Gil oversaw a side managed by 16 men in 17 years. He also oversaw a side that was relegated to the Segunda Division at the end of the 1999-2000 season. As soccerlens.com put it “Under Gil, Atletico were desperately short of structure, long term plans and patience.” This lack of patience, this short-termism led to a humiliating relegation for Atletico. Is this the model we wish to follow at Valley Parade? Alex Ferguson, on the other hand, took seven years to win the league at Manchester United and followed that success with eight further league titles in eleven years (not to mention considerable success in cup competitions and Europe).

McCall has good contacts in the game (bear in mind that Nicky Law Jr and Dean Furman came from two of McCall’s previous clubs) and a good grounding in terms of coaching, having served as a youth team coach, reserve team coach, and assistant manager. He also has a will to win and a love for the club. These qualities should all stand him in good stead as manager of Bradford City. McCall still has to prove himself as a manager and he may turn out not to be as good a gaffer as I would have expected. It has not been easy for him – he started his career at a club that had been going down through the divisions, he probably wasn’t as familiar with League Two as other managers that we could have appointed, and last season’s injuries to players such as Colbeck, Daley, Brandon and Thorne played a big part in our failure to achieve at least a play-off spot. Bullock, Brandon and Colbeck were injured for long enough that it was always going to take them some time to get back their match fitness – their sharpness. This was time we could ill afford in a promotion chase. This season, he has had to operate with a lower budget and has had to wait for players to leave before he could approach targets. Our expectations for McCall and Bradford this season should be lowered accordingly. Yet people are calling for McCall to leave after the very first competitive match of the season.

When I put up a poll on this post: Save our Stuart; I didn’t know what to expect. In the event, 33 people voted. One was a “don’t know”, thirty-two wanted McCall to stay, and not one single person voted that they wanted him to leave. Perhaps they agreed with Roland Harris (and myself) that stability is what is needed? Perhaps they were unable to answer Michael Wood’s question if it wasn’t Stuart McCall then who would it be? (Checking the poll again today, I see that the results are now 34 ‘no’, 1 ‘yes’ and 1 ‘don’t know’, which mean the percentage of fans who have voted, to date, for McCall to stay is 94%.) From the poll on my blog, the number of fans who chanted McCall’s name and the number of paper placards held up I can only assume that the vast majority of fans wanted McCall to stay. Either some have changed their minds on the basis of a single result (which would be irrational behaviour) or we are hearing from the tiny minority who wanted a change last season and lost the argument. It will be interesting to see what the atmosphere is like at forthcoming games and how fans will react on blogs and message boards should there be a swift improvement in performances and results.

There is some further discussion at Boy From Brazil.

This blogger has posted an article that is, while generally factually accurate, making some rather silly assertions.

Firstly, the blog claims that:

Bradford were the league’s fakers; occasionally elegant but underneath lay a seedy underbelly of consistent fouling and bad discipline. That’s what you get when you’ve got Stuart McCall in charge, no matter how funny he is at falling over.

I wondered about this assertion, because it didn’t match my perception of City’s performances last season. I certainly don’t recall City being more sinners than sinned against, so I checked. On ESPN Soccernet, the Fair Play League table for 2008-09 shows City in third place with 46 yellow cards and 2 reds. Rochdale, by way of contrast, are in 11th place (with 57 yellow cards and 4 reds). If City have a seedy underbelly of consistent fouling and bad discipline, then Rochdale players must have a seedy underbelly indeed and the blogger I linked to above must be very disappointed indeed with the dirty play of the thugs he must watch weekly. The implied accusation that City are dirty because McCall is their manager is not just a cheap shot, I believe it is an inaccurate one. I watched McCall in his first spell at City and followed his subsequent career in the top divisions of England and Scotland and in the international arena as best I could via the limited TV coverage football received in those days. While I don’t have the stats to hand, he never struck me as a dirty player. As a manager, he has certainly not set his City teams up to play dirty so this accusation is an unworthy one.

Also, there is a section that repeats the claim that City offered more money than Rochdale when they were trying to sign Ramsden:

They’ve slashed their budget for this season, but it still remains higher than most clubs, and they could afford to entice Simon Ramsden to West Yorkshire by offering higher wages than us (or were they the same?).

This is particularly stupid, given that no-one at Rochdale has disputed McCall’s confirmation that we’re paying the same as Rochdale offered. Linking to an article with an opposing view for ‘balance’ does not excuse making daft, unfounded assertions. Rochdale’s manager had been misled into thinking that City had offered more money. He accepted McCall’s clarification. So why print an untruth in a blog post? Deliberately making an article you write inaccurate and misleading strikes me as a silly thing to do and certainly not the way to build trust in a readership.

I expect bloggers to have certain ethics, truthfulness being one of them. It seems that other bloggers agree with me: news story on the ethics of blogging. (Quote: Key issues in the blogosphere are telling the truth, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution.)

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.

Simon Ramsden has joined from Rochdale, presumably as first-choice right back. Which makes one wonder as to the future of Arnison. Bateson is our back-up for that position, but we lack competition for Luke O’Brien on the other flank. Perhaps trialist Grant Smith, who can play “on the wing, at left back and would also offer cover as a left-sided centre half” according to the T&A, will be the man to provide competition and cover for OB. Other trialists include Jordan Hadfield (a midfielder from Macclesfield) non-league centre half Steve Williams, and Guiseley striker Paul Hanson. The other name in the frame seems to be former Huddersfield midfielder Mark Hudson who has claimed he would like to join the club, though whether City are interested in him or not is another matter.

Gareth Evans, meanwhile, is a welcome addition to the frontline strikers having joined from Macclesfield. Let’s hope we see plenty of this from the young lad.

It’s been reported that three players have left Guiseley during this summer break and that “striker James Hanson may yet follow”. According to manager Steve Kittrick: “He will be having trials with Bradford City in the pre-season and if anything develops there we would not stand in his way.” (Source: http://www.wharfedaleobserver.co.uk/sport/4418407.Guiseley_hoping_to_hang_on_to_hanson/)

Northampton Town have been installed as 8/1 joint favourites to win Coca-Cola League Two next season and bounce back at the first attempt following their relegation last month. City, meanwhile, are third favourites at 9/1 behind Northampton and Shrewsbury. I think that’s rather optimistic. If we couldn’t go up last year with a much bigger budget than we have this time out (not to mention that other teams are unlikely to be as handicapped by points deductions next season as so many were last year) I don’t want to get my hopes up. Me? I’ll be steering clear of the bookies. (Source for bookies’ odds: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/Cobblers-joint-favourites-on-back.5333562.jp)

With a sub-headline trumpeting “Bradford City – Stuart McCall will aim for promotion next season”, you might expect this to be a new, upbeat story. It isn’t. It’s a rehash of reports of McCall’s comments from the end of last season. Does McCall state that he will aim for promotion next season? No. In fact, he is quoted as saying “We’ll come back next season refocused on doing our best – but not setting any targets beyond that” – the exact opposite of the claim made by the website’s sub-headline. The sub-headline to this piece is a big fat lie – this is typical not just of the mainstream media, but also of shitty commercial websites. (Source: http://www.givemefootball.com/league-two/end-of-season-review-bradford-city) It may be billed an “end-of-season review”, but it was published on 3rd June and appeared on page 2 of a google news search for Bradford City.

I’ve had enough of waiting and waiting for pages to load, having to wait again if I want to scroll up or down and facing an even longer wait if I want to leave a comment. Newspaper websites are crap. It’’s not just the T&A, admittedly – I also need to slag off pretty much every other newspaper (including the Guardian). If they didn’t rely so much on Flash then their websites would load more quickly and be much more user-friendly. Frankly, I’d rather read a well-written blog. Like Boy From Brazil.

EDIT: Good news. Following a brief period when I coudn’t access the BfB site, it is now showing again (albeit with stray bits of code littering the site).  http://www.boyfrombrazil.co.uk/

Maybe Sheffield United will get promoted to the Premier League and decide that Nicky Law could do with another spell at Bradford (and pay his wages for us)? [They've just beaten Preston 1-0 to make the play-off final.]

Maybe Leeds will sell Fabian Delph for £10 million and we’ll get a hefty fee from the sell-on clause?

Maybe Rangers will win the Scottish League and decide that Dean Furman could do with another spell at Bradford (and pay his wages for us)?

Maybe our youth team harbours several superstars in waiting?

Maybe I’ll win the lottery and be able to put some money into the club?

Maybe Luke Medley will be sold by Barnet for a few million? Erm, I think I may have gone too far now.