BfB

It has become an open secret that Peter Jackson will be the full time Bradford City manager as long as he does not mess up the next three games.

Open secret might be overstating things, it is a rumour might underplay them though, but one by one everyone you talk to about the City job starts saying the same thing. Jackson has three games to win the job. How many of them he needs to win you can only guess at. Today at Gillingham, Rotherham on Tuesday and Morecambe on Saturday and four points are probably not going to be enough so two wins might be the ticket, unless the board fancy appointing the guy who is doing “ok.”

Three wins to claim the job or three to save it if you prefer and if he does not do enough in the next seven days then John Hughes is the man. It’s like Jackson has arrived under pressure, fighting for his job, and in a way City have managed to find a way of limping from one manager needing wins to another.

So two wins in the next three and Jackson is to be anointed having proved to be too good to not give the job to – or so it will be spun no doubt – but Hughes is a back up in case the season slips again into relegation problems.

Jackson starts the fight well with City going at the home team who will accept nothing less than promotion with Luke Oliver spurning a chance with minutes gone to head in a deep corner. A couple of minutes later both Gareth Evans and Kevin Ellison could have done better.

Evans and Ellison are deployed as widemen in a 4-4-2 with Michael Flynn in the middle and Jon Worthington behind him. Worthington doesn’t last the first half going off bleeding and he is missed quickly when Gillingham’s massive strike Adebayo Akinfenwa scores after a sucession or cheap few kicks.

Cheap free kicks from a referee who at one point books one of the City subs so much does he struggle to keep the players on the rich in control that his bookings leak out to people who aren’t playing. A guy in Argentina sent off 36 players in one game this week, it could be worse.

Jackson’s laying out in the 4-4-2 Peter Taylor would not play, Stuart McCall loved and football managers risk being called old fashioned for using. The shape suits the players more and the look more assured and comfortable and as a result it is all more enjoyable.

Jackson – or Hughes – might wish he had Omar Daley back for the orthodox 4-4-2 which plays little man big man with Jake Speight and Jim Hanson and the kind if midfield pair that seems to work. Worthington knows Jackson from Huddersfield and is instantly back in the side. No one says the F word.

As a supporter who sees mostly Southern games, and away games, the performance was better than we have seen for sometime and some of that is new manager excitement but most is the way the players fit into the formation.

They look more at ease but when at the start of the second half Curtis Weston powers down the wing and smashes the ball into the too corner suddenly that ease starts to worry. The two widemen not know for their crossing, the little man up front who flatter to deceive, and Jackson faces the question as to if his team have the goals in them.

Flynn tries to respond quickly raising the tempo and Speight gets a chance after good work from Evans but the game seems out of reach from the moment of the second goal.

So for Jackson there is optimism from a good performance but the realities of football management for his predecessors have it that only winning is important and technical merit, and being the hero of fans, does not get you far at Valley Parade.

Hanson spends the afternoon winning everything but Speight does not read his flicks well enough and the two widemen are not able to join the attack with pace. It looks good but is not effective.

Luke O’Brien heads the ball off the line, making up for getting stormed past by Weston earlier, to give Jackson’s hopes of claiming this defeat as a creditable enterprise. City were always going to struggle at a promotion chaser and the result is no worse than can be expected, Tuesday night probably represents a better gauge.

Certainly the players will have plenty of time to think about it on the coach on the way home. It is about a five hour drive back to Bradford, Peter Jackson has three hours of football left to make a claim to be City boss.