BfB

On The 2010/2011 Season

Peter Taylor is charged with taking Bradford City to promotion which has happened but eight times in the ninety-seven seasons Bradford City have played in. Relegation has happened in ten seasons three of which were within the last decade.

The number of blank squares above shows the scarcity of promotion in the clubs history. The club have never had consecutive promotions – an aim of Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes three seasons ago – nor have City ever been promoted the season after being relegated. Only once has the club been promoted within four seasons of being relegated which is the task presented to manager Taylor.

None to which is to say that City are wrong to have the aims they do but it does illustrates – perhaps – the folly of planning on the basis of achieving what is infrequent in the club’s history.

There is much talk about resources at Bradford City and many ways to measure the club’s resources. The above shows the record transfer fees the club has paid – largely around a decade ago – and contrasts them with the four members of the squad transfer fees can be found for. This is presented to illustrate the scare of the diminished scale of the club’s resources.

The above shows the more senior players in the current Bradford City squad in the context of the most appearances any player has made for the club. It is presented to illustrate two points. Firstly current squad’s newness which shows a transience which is common in football and at Bradford City. Secondly it illustrates the short term nature of the players at the club. Gareth Evans signed for the club last season and is the fifth most appeared player.

As with the number of appearances the goals scored by the current Bantams players when compared with the club’s historic goalscorers. It illustrates both the distances the current players have to match those who have gone before and the excellent starts that both Evans and Hanson have made in that although noting that it will take another four or five seasons at the current rate for either to add themselves to the list.

A final table to show the international representation in the Bradford City squad which illustrates very little aside, but looks nice.

Snow.

The world is full of it and if this country had proper snow ploughs then we would not have a question mark over this weekend’s game with Gillingham. No, we would have a question over whether a vehicle used once every twenty years would start on a cold day.

If the game with Gillingham goes ahead then City look at playing off with the Kent side for a play-off place with them in seventh and the Bantams a place below and the right set of results – or postponements – could leave either fourth on Saturday evening.

Postponements being the challenge of logic in football. Inevitably they occur – City already have an away game at AFC Bournemouth to attempt to replay as well as Monday night’s cancelled Darlington home game – and unrealistically they twist the table leading to the question “how much is game in hand worth?”

Shrewsbury are a place above Gillingham and two above City and a point ahead of the Bantams. Is it safe to assume that – that game played – we can adjust City above the men from Gay Meadow? Some – Bill Shankley for example – would say not and point to every point having to be earned. The grizzled Scot would say that you have nothing when you have nothing and dinne ye forget it.

Nevertheless with 45 point from 28 games City are picking up 1.7 points a game so extrapolating that average we could assume that we would get that point – and a bit more – at least. Taking an example Grimsby Town – 22nd on the league and a point and place below Barnet – score at 0.78 points per game and thus it is probably not safe to assume they will overhaul the club a place above them however the fact that they are one down in the played column – and no one in the league has the 30 games played that have been scheduled – gives them the optimism that they may collect all three points.

Indeed when City faced relegation from the First Division under Chris Kamara Grimsby Town looked at our game in hand against then high flying Charlton Athletic and could have worked out a similar logic with City as likely to collect three points at home on that Thursday night as they were at any other time during the season. We won that game and beat QPR to stay up with our game in hand counting for three points.

Countering that in 1988 West Ham United had five games in hand over Liverpool which – if they were all won – would have seen them snatch the league. They collected less than half of those points and one was left to reflect not that Frank McAvennie and co had blow a chance at the league just that it was a quirk of statistics that suggested they had one and had the games been played in their scheduled slots in the season they would have been the same unremarkable results and the Hammers would have ended up third in a less exciting way.

Games in hand create falseness. City pick up 1.87 points a home game and 1.31 from an away one but how one uses those stats to create an adjusted league table is no more an accurate reflection than assumption that every game not played will be won.

What we do know is that the Bantams beat Grimsby Town last weekend and Stuart McCall struggles with riches in the midfield – Joe Colbeck is expected to start the next City game be it this one or the game with Wycombe Wanderers on Valentines Day – and misfiring strikers up front.

The midfield of Colbeck, Dean Furman, Nicky Law Jnr and Omar Daley seems set to continue while Paul McLaren is injured – in my experience the people who suggest we do not need McLaren in the team also puzzle about our corners not beating the first man when he is not playing and I would yoke those two points together – but McCall has a liking for Steve Jones which could see him included somewhere. McCall had tried playing Jones as a forward having seen his own strikers notch but two in eight from free play.

Probable starter Michael Boulding believes both he and partner Peter Thorne can get to twenty by the season end and I am reminded of an old footballing adage about front men: How many goals does the front man of a winning team scored? Enough. City are a drawing team of late and the strikers need to improve, or at least have improvement visited on them with better service.

The defence at City is mean – almost as mean as its critics – and only seriously leaked when they lost the headed defensive clearances of Barry Conlon at Luton. Six foot plus Zesh Rahmen’s inclusion at right back was more to do with getting a third big man to mark at set plays than it was a reflection on Paul Arnison and Rahmen is expected to retain a place alongside Graeme Lee and Matthew Clarke with Luke O’Brien at left back and Rhys Evans between the sticks.

Except, of course, they will all probably be at home, kicking their heels, talking about snow ploughs.