BfB

In the light of City’s 2-0 defeat to Wolves if you want Phil Parkinson to be Bradford City manager because you enjoyed going to Wembley twice last season then please can you sit down and shhhh.

The fact that Parkinson’s side achieved anything last season has no relevance to this season in which the team have won once in nineteen games. The historic visit to Wembley – no team that far down in the football pyramid has got so far – has nothing to do with if Phil Parkinson is the right man for the job of Bradford City manager.

If you want Phil Parkinson to be Bradford City manager because the club are doing well to be in 13th position in League One considering that last season we were in League Two then please can you sit down and shhhh.

The squad that Parkinson has built is the one that he has built to compete in League One. His signings in the summer: Jason Kennedy, Raffaele De Vita, Mark Yeates et al; were not intended to come in above the 2013 players but rather to be a part of it. He is happy with the squad. He made it as he wants it to be and in signing the likes of Aaron McLean he continues to do so.

If you want Phil Parkinson to be Bradford City manager because things will go right again when the injuries clear up then please can you sit down and shhhh.

Injuries are a fact of football and Parkinson coped with the loss of Andrew Davies by playing Rory McArdle and Carl McHugh to victory against Aston Villa and Arsenal. Good managers are able to cope with injuries.

If you want Phil Parkinson to be Bradford City manager because he has turned around ten years of rubbish then please can you sit down and shhhh.

It is probably worth facing up to the fact that Phil Parkinson is not the only manager who could have won promotion last season and even the only manager who could have got to Wembley in the League Cup final. You, dear reader, can have your own thoughts on the people who preceded Parkinson as manager of Bradford City but I’d say that if you are defending Parkinson as one of a kind then you are not doing him any favours.

Managers have different sets of tools and use them in different ways. Parkinson has shown a set of tools and used them effectively previously.

If you want Phil Parkinson to be Bradford City manager because the club needs stability then please can you sit down and shhhh.

The stability debate has been had at Bradford City and the people who wanted it lost. I know, I was one of them.

Stability at Bradford City is the sort of thing that we used to joke about it. I know that the club considered replacing Parkinson in his first season. The fact that that fell off the agenda because his team created history just suggests that stability is only achieved in the face of the bleeding obvious.

Never again with it be that obvious what a good job a manager is doing and why Bradford City need to keep Parkinson in charge three months out from the end of the season where it seemed we were mired in mid-table then when that team is walking out at Wembley. It is very easy to be “stable” when the team is obviously doing well.

The argument for stability carries no weight inside Bradford City. It has not done previously and there is no sign that it will do going forward even though it is on the whole correct.

The reason Parkinson should be the Bradford City manager is because he is doing a good job.

He brings to the club a set of tools which are bringing success. Those tools include hard work and effort on the part of the players, and they include patterns of playing which get results and they include building a team spirit and ethos which if obvious on the field and off it.

The lengthy tribute Alan Connell paid to the squad on his way out is evidence of that of that. Ask anyone close to the squads of 1985, 1999, or 2013 and they will tell you that the common thread is groups of players who have been melded into a team.

Parkinson has the tools to do that and has done it previously at City and other clubs. He is not the only manager who can nor is that the only way of getting success but he is in the process of attempting to do that.

You may wonder how one win in however many games you decide is part of bringing success but poor results on the field do not alter the core facts that – if you want to make a sturdy defence of why Phil Parkinson should be the Bradford City manager – a case should be built on.

Parkinson has the tools to bring success to a football club. He knows how to do it. And he is trying to do that now.

He understands that building teams is more important than amassing players and did not risk the spirit he had in the club in the summer by throwing in new faces. He understands that what other players think of each other is more important than what the fans think of players and that is why he simply does not care that you do not like Garry Thompson, or you think Jon McLaughlin might make too many mistakes, or that Rory McArdle is not what he was.

He understands that Gary Jones’ legs might not be those of a twenty one year old but he knows that Jones is the leader of his group.

The challenges are in improving the squad both through coaching, building belief and recruitment while not damaging that core which is essential to how he does things. It is not about Wembley or wanting stability to injuries or other managers its about being smart enough to recognise the strengths of what the club have in place and standing up for that.

Parkinson has the abilities needed to create a successful club. That is why he should be Bradford City manager and that is what you should stand up and shout about.

I will be doing.

Alan Connell is a bit too smart for a footballer.

It is said that when he was carpetted by then Swindon Town manager Paulo Di Canio for going for a drink with three teammates following the Wiltshire club’s League Two championship which coincided with the death of Di Canio’s father than rather than take the ire of the Italian Connell opted for reasoning.

Something along the lines of that while he was in no way pleased about the death in the family he thought it was not inappropriate that he and his friends have one or two drinks to celebrate a job well done.

The fact Connell ended up at City shows the response to that from the manager.

Phil Parkinson is a less autocratic man than Di Canio and his successes are in building team spirit. Connell has become a part of one of those teams but only a small part. The emergence of Nahki Wells rendered Connell a bit part player and that – on the surface – is why it did not work out for Alan Connell at Bradford City.

Perhaps though – Wells aside – Connell was never Parkinson’s sort of striker. The City manager when talking about former City forward Mark Stewart said that he thought he was a good player but that he did not threaten the goal enough and the same could be said about Connell. He had scored one in three at Swindon but at City he rarely looked like repeating that at Valley Parade primarily because he did not get past defenders, did not threaten the goal, did not shoot often enough.

Everyone who said that Connell was a Robbie Blake kind of player was right. His goals come when he joins in attacking movements in the third phase. He joins in the link up play in the first, takes position in the second and makes what he can in the third. Parkinson’s teams favouring a ball to James Hanson with a flick down to the speedy Wells were never really suited to Connell’s play.

Not Parkinson’s sort of striker but very much Parkinson’s sort of player.

Connell’s demeanor and his role as a senior professional – only 30 but one of the older players in the squad – the manager used Connell’s professionalism as an example. He came off the bench and toiled often for little reward. He trained well and set a tone that the likes of Wells and Hanson followed.

It seemed to work out well for Parkinson and for City but not really for Connell.

Grimsby Town are asking after Connell. He deserves to do well there.