BfB

If you believe Simon Parker of the Telegraph and Argus then Bradford City are trying to decide between two managers: Interim boss Peter Jackson and Dagenham & Redbridge gaffer John Still.

One of these two men – it is said by Parker – will be appointed as City’s full time manager in the Summer. Extrapolation theory has it that if the job is Jackson’s then he will be given a contract at the end of the season while if it is to be Still then he will not arrive until after the end of Dag & Red’s fight against League One relegation and Jackson will remain in charge until then. Either way it is Jackson until May.

For those who do not know him John Still is a one game Leyton Orient defender turned non-league manager who took Maidstone United into the football league before exiting and then ended up as the man in charge of the merged Dag & Red (being the Redbridge Forest manager) taking them into the league and then up from League Two last season.

That is the headline on Still’s CV – that he took a team with limited resources to promotion – and it is not hard to see why such a quality would impress the Bradford City board although it is hard to compare that with Peter Taylor’s record. Indeed many things about Still suggest that as a candidate the only thing he offers which Taylor does not is that he is not Peter Taylor. His football is similar, his track record equally hit and miss, and like Taylor he would be accused of being out of touch by virtue of his age. He is sixty.

Ten years younger is Peter Jackson who has performed in a way which describes adequate perfectly. He has sorted out the basics of the team quickly: a 442, a holding midfielder, a big man little man forward line up; and that has been shown in the move away from relegation. He is all the things one suspects and more and there is something about his opportunism which endears, although for how long one wonders.

Certainly Jackson would have been upset with his charges on Saturday. Two players were given chances to impress and failed to do so. Gareth Evans – most obviously – seemed to choke when given the chance to lead the line while David Syers was not able to control central midfield in the way that Michael Flynn does. Jackson will have been disappointed with both.

Disappointed and frustrated no doubt by the fact that having given Syers that chance the manager will not – should he not be appointed – get to build on what he saw in Syers on Saturday. It is obvious to say that consistency allows a manager to work with his players and improve them and I’m sure that no one reading this article would be in much doubt to the importance I would place on giving the manager a long term contract and allowing him to build.

However assuming that – as the philosopher Jagger says – you can’t always get what you want then what sort of manager is perfect for City? What sort of manager do City need? One who can make an instant impact, build a team before the season starts, is able to conjure something out of something which some would say is nothing.

Some would be I – and Luke Oliver – would not. After four years of League Two football I am convinced that the difference between the top and the bottom is which team gets the odd break and goes for the odd pint. Togetherness, team spirit, a willingness to be brave and to take responsibility for your performance and the collective display are what matter far more than the ability to bend a ball in from thirty yards.

Looking at Still’s record – in common with most managers – there is very little to suggest he is a man of instant impacts while Jackson’s impact has already been felt. One would shy from criticising either manager’s ability but one would question their ability to turn around the team in the time frames which seem to be demanded from the Bantams.

For, it seems, the perfect manager for the Bantams is the magician. The magician like Chris Kamara who can take a team going nowhere and some how take it on a seventeen game run that ended at Wembley, the magician like Terry Dolan who could take a team heading for relegation and win sixteen of his next twenty games. Neither of those could repeat their magic trick.

So City can’t get what they want but – on occasion – they get what they need and what they need is the magic manager.