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.