BfB

A curious week for Peter Taylor draws to a close as his City team face Burton Albion in League Two as the the League Two season draws to an end more closely resembling pre-season for next term under Taylor than the end of the disappointing 2009/2010 campaign.

It is the understanding of BfB – supported by the hints dropped in the T&A on Monday – that Peter Taylor has put ink on paper on an agreement to be Bradford City manager. Why this information should not be presented as so if it is so is probably down to management of the season ticket appeal the Bantams are running – 5,000 needed to keep a manager falls flat if the manager is already staying but perhaps not as flat as the week went for the Bantams.

The pair of one goal defeats for a beleaguered and injury hit Bantams side has burst the bubble of optimism although the expectation remains that Taylor’s Bantams will perform far better next season than they do at the moment remains. Taylor was never going to have a honeymoon period coming after a manager who remained popular until the end but the former Wycombe Wanderers gaffer managed to eke out a few good results before this current form.

Taylor is – it has been said – still the outstanding candidate for the job and the fact that Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes have – we hear – signed him for next season regardless of result is a credit to them.

Reading Mike Harrison’s interview with the man which is to appear in a forthcoming City Gent and is well worth a read he seems to be bedding in for the future with an interesting and different approach to the club than McCall had. He comes over as a man with a clear idea of the path to success and a healthy desire to follow that path.

The path takes him to Paul Peschisolido’s Burton Albion. Peschisolido took over from Nigel Clough – although former Bantams boss Roy McFarland has a three month spell following Clough’s exit for Derby – who was at the East Midlands club for some eleven years each one save one offered incremental progression. Such returns are well regarded in the game but would probably not be considered good enough by the oft militant Bradford City supporters.

The Bantams go to Burton Albion following a 1-1 draw at Valley Parade which was the first time since an early 1990s FA Cup game in which Gary Robson’s arse chalked up a goal doing more in one game that his brother did by sitting on his gluteus maximus. Taylor will certainly hope to have more of an impact that Bryan Robson.

The manager goes into the game with the same half team which struggled over Easter. Matt Glennon keeps goal while Luke Oliver’s continued deployment as a target man looks like it may continue leaving the defence shod of the six foot seven man who looks to join City in the summer.

Jonathan Bateson will feature at right back with Zesh Rehman and Steve Williams at the heart of the defence and Robbie Threlfall at left back. Youth payers Andrew Villerman, Phil Cutler and Louis Horne are all expected to be in the squad with Villerman thought to be interesting Taylor who is keen to assess what he can expect from the young players at the club.

Taylor has passed on his wisdom to Leon Osbourne but is not expected to hand him a starting role with Luke O’Brien on the left wing and Gareth Evans on the right. Adam Bolder – who I think is a good player although he seemed to be curiously booed during last week’s game – and Lee Bullock take central midfield.

With James Hanson injured, Evans in midfield, Boulding sunning himself in the Bahamas and Peter Thorne rock climbing in Mexico – perhaps – Ryan Kendal looks to start making a mark and Luke Oliver is expected to lead the line.

Being robbed of Hanson is a blow for Taylor and the City manager can rely on his worldy target man getting one in three for the Bantams next season. Kendal certainly has not shown anything to suggest that he is the man to get the one in two which Sir Bobby Robson would say a club needs to get promoted and much of the manager’s success will come down to his ability to find that goalscorer.

With – we are told – a manager inked in for next year one can see a City team emerge for next year. Taylor seems to like Williams and Oliver at the back. Hanson is in it up front and Omar Daley is the flair player wide in a working midfield that contains a couple of hard workers like Bullock and Flynn (or perhaps Bolder) and a tighter flank player.

These are – one hopes – the blocks of a promotion side. Certainly the first block of that is the signature of Taylor and if what is said is true – we have that.

“Well that’s the Summer sorted” I said to the wife with the prospect of the four yearly month off work after England’s 5-1 win secured a place in the World Cup Finals next June.

England’s progression has been remarkable for the rapidity of the turn around from two years ago and the infamous Wally With The Brolly to Wednesday night’s Italian elan and The Man With The Plan.

The management style between the two evenings marks a contrast more than the players involved who by in large are the same bunch and one must be wary to not undersell Cappello’s perfectionist approach but attitude divides the England of two years ago and the team from last night.

Attitude and confidence that started to grow not at Wembley where tabloid journalists unimpressed with the England manager’s aloofness ho-hummed about the appointment but in Croatia when a 4-1 win spoke eloquently for the manager and his players.

It has taken two, four, maybe seven years and Seaman’s swipe in the saucy Swede‘s side to turn opinions around on England but turned they have been and that more even than getting Frank Lampard Jnr and Steve Gerrard into the same side is Cappello’s achievement.

One recalls April 2002 in the months after another 5-1 England win a newspaper story breaking and copy about “the ice cool Swede” who can do no wrong being rewritten. The rise and fall of Roman Empires has precedent.

Far away in a field in Cheltenham not years but weeks ago – club football’s inexorable pace is it’s main difference to the International game – a team ran onto the field with confidence at a lowest ebb to a point where few could see it scoring and not conceding many.

That was Bradford City three weeks ago and four wins ago and while Stuart McCall never sheltered under an umbrella he was a long way from Fabio. Following a 2-1 win at Shrewsbury in which all say that City rode their luck massively the Bantams manager seems to have a turned the same bunch of players into a winning machine that is protected even by fortune.

Four wins on McCall and all – including his supporters in the now muted argument over his abilities – would do well to recall Sir Bobby Robson’s epitaph raised on opening day. You are never as bad or as good as you think you are.

City play with confidence though and McCall has been quick to underline the importance of that throughout his team and especially in young keeper “There’s only one” Simon Eastwood who has begun to rise to his reputation with a string of excellent saves at Shrewsbury despite a heavy whack on the shin that threatens to keep him out and sees Jon McLaughin ready to take the gloves up.

McCall’s faith in Eastwood is being rewarded while his confidence in bringing in Simon Ramsden is reaping benefits with some dubbing the right back brought from Rochdale as Stuart’s Best Signing. He provides a high watermark and good example for Luke O’Brien to follow as the young left back learns about second season and the transition from prospect to player.

Zesh Rehman and Steve Williams are not an unbreakable partnership but are roughly building an understanding.

McCall had – like Cappello – a nominal and a practical formation with a list of players as read out being more of a rough starting point rather than a rigid tactic.

So the midfield will probably read Neilson, J O’Brien, Bullock, Flynn but the make up will see Lee Bullock falling back into a more central, protecting role with James O’Brien and Michael Flynn tasked with traditional box to box play leaving the line up a tad one sided with Flynn tight on the left compared to the width on offer from Scott Neilson who makes his first start at home in the Bantams first game at Valley Parade since the departure of Joe Colbeck.

Steven Gerrard said of Fabio’s England that the players enjoyed the experience more now than they did previously when the crowd was on some player’s backs and so one wonders what the effect of not having Colbeck will be.

I believe the player is talented but the disruptive influence he had by virtue of the schism of opinion was clear for all. That removed will the 11,000 at Valley Parade be more of one voice? It eludes me why any City fan wanted Colbeck to fail but it seems sure that none would want the same for his replacement Neilson and perhaps that positivism will make itself felt on the field.

Neilson is part of a group at City that includes Gareth Evans, James Hanson, Luke O’Brien and Steve Williams who can best be dubbed “the want-to-do-well boys” who see their not inconsiderable work put in rewarded by a matching of longing of supporters. These are young players who have won hearts and minds in a way Colbeck, Tom Penford, Danny Forrest and Craig Bentham did not and rather than question why this is the case let us celebrate the fact it is.

Evans and Hanson will start with Peter Thorne injured and Michael Boulding in a similar state although closer to fitness. Boulding is the picture book opposite to the want to win boys seemingly having talent over effort that see him sidelined and Evans in his role. Hanson leads the line and never loses a header for the want of effort.

Burton Albion are new to the league but not to City who had Gary Robson’s arse to thank for an early rounds of the FA Cup win back in 1996. They were managed by Nigel Clough for nearly a decade before Son of Brain went to Derby County and as such represent a team which has benefited from patience in a manager who has built a structure which new gaffer Paul Pechisolido reaps the rewards from with a good start that includes a 1-1 at Notts County.

Sitting above City a fifth win on the spin for the Bantams would see the clubs flip positions but early season renders that meaningless and McCall and all will be more concerned with rebuilding the hard fought for good home record if six months of last season.

Home form brings confidence and running that confidence through the season is of paramount importance should a promotion bid be staged.

Run that confidence into the summer and who knows what could happen.