BfB

Consequentialism has a simple message for football: An action is considered to be good if the outcome is good and thus Bradford City’s 1-0 win over a Stevenage side who returned to Hertfordshire with the applause of their supporters ringing in their ears would only be considered to be not only a good result but also a good performance.

Indeed it would be very hard to find fault with many areas of Bradford City’s display. Defensively Peter Taylor hit every note right pre-empting the visitors switch to a more direct football by bringing on Zesh Rehman for today’s captain Shane Duff. Luke Oliver – the man of the match for some today – seemed to struggle in the game but in the end too the plaudits at the heart of a back four that conceded no goals.

Indeed the best chance that Stevenage had came when Luke O’BrienDuff passed back straight to Yemi Odubade holding his head in his hands and not watching as Jon McLaughlan spread massively and dug a foot into the striker to save the day.

The midfield sat atop the back four let little of consequence past with Tom Doherty and Lee Bullock, and later David Syers, blocking and forcing the visitors into what has become known as Hollywood shooting. Football which seldom gets rewards and is often the result of impressive defensive play.

That the Bantams ended up playing a game at Valley Parade in their own half, that so much ground was surrendered to a visiting side who three games ago had never played a Football League game, of no concern to the Consequentialists. The result was good, ergo everything was good.

The decisive goal – when it came – came from a Gareth Evans penalty that was a result of a tidy bit of play that saw the Bantams stretch down the right hand side. The ball cut back to Bullock who took it forward and was cut off by an ill advised lunge by Joel Byrom. Evans put the penalty in with a calmness.

The forward three of Evans, James Hanson and Omar Daley were disjointed in the first half but maintained a discipline in the second that saw them utilised in the pursuit of a clean sheet. The forward line dropped back onto the midfield who dropped back onto the defence who tried to push out and it was all good because the outcome was good.

The penalty aside City enjoyed only one other chance of note – Omar Daley breaking at the start of the second half and pushing the ball past three defenders hitting a fading shot over – but for all the visitor’s attempts they looked more dangerous as a statistic than they did on the field. The chance given over by O’BrienDuff was the best that troubled the Bantams.

Daley and Tom Adeyemi struggled to find a place in the game with Adeyemi poor today by virtue of the fact that his role was so isolated in the side. The attacking midfielder in a team which did not attack he enjoyed a better afternoon scoring the goal last week at Shrewsbury but that that was the one in a defeat, no matter how fruitless it may have seemed his his performance was today a consequentialist would say it was good.

Daley – on the other hand – is one short of a hundred games for the Bantams but cut an isolated figure on the left hand side of an attacking three with the requirement to pull back and bolster the backline curtailing his advances. His role in the side would seem to be to stay as solid as he can and then – if he can – provide the spark that makes the difference.

Any trouble for the Bantams side was marked by the agitated figure of Peter Taylor surging forward from the technical area to blast his team with instructions. Moving like a marionette with its strings tangled Taylor fumed at his side enforcing the defensive unit in an attempt to ensuring that the win was not lost. The big decision of the game – to replace Duff with Rehman – Taylor judged exceptionally well although the consequentialism which dictates the merits of the display also judges the quality of the substitution.

In short everything was good, but cause it ended well.

Nevertheless – and the statement is remarkable when said out loud – the Bantams were booed off for wining the game 1-0. Indeed through the second half that saw City build the wall of a defensive which could not be breeched there was an increasing grumble that Taylor should “sort it out” which – considering the Bantams were in the lead and not especially living on the edge – was to be assumed to be a desire for a more attacking game to be adopted.

The consequentialism as opposed to a deontological approach which would have it that football is for the enjoying and a victory without enjoyment is no victory at all, or rather that it is a bad victory and that it needed rectifying.

All of which send the mind drifting back to a Saturday in February in which Stuart McCall’s Bradford City side battered a Bury team which ended up winning 1-0. McCall bowed to the pressure (which came from both the terraces and the boardroom) and exited after that game with an idea that his deontological approach was not what the club needed.

The club needed – it was said – a manager who won games and evidently Peter Taylor is that manager and one has to wonder what the 57 year old gaffer would make of the reception his side received for the three points they worked hard to win.

Indeed what is one to make of a group of supporters who boo when the team does not win, boo when it does and seemingly will only be sated when the club are winning every game with a flourish, probably scoring with exactly the kind of Hollywood football which did not work for Stevenage?

The descenting voices who complained that the club needed to forgo all in favour of victory are now complaining that the wins are not attractive enough. A lesson for Mark Lawn – perhaps – in the merits and effects of appeasing the malcontent.

The Bantams have a first win of the League season and go to Torquay with points on the board, the unique sound of a Bradford City team being booed off for winning a game rattling in the hollow, empty, otiose Valley Parade.

As Lee Bullock turned a chance to get a fifth goal in City’s comprehensive 4-0 win over neighbours Bradford (Park Avenue) wide of the post following a powerful run by Tom Adeyemi the Bantams’ pre-season came to a merciful end with little learnt and little needed to be known.

Peter Taylor sent out a first half team assembled of players not expected to play on Saturday afternoon’s season opener against Shrewsbury Town with new face Seb Carole on trial and playing on the right with David Syers in the middle and suspended for Saturday Omar Daley on the left all ahead of – surprisingly – a first City appearance for Tom Doherty.

The bearded midfielder’s forty five minutes showed the glimpses of what Taylor sees in the player sitting deep and moving the ball around usefully finding the active running of forward pair Jake Speight – who dropped off well and showed a useful turn or two – and Louis Moult who is a strong looking, hard working striker who is instantly impressive in his play and attitude.

Moult scored his second goal for the club – and City’s second of the night – controlling a pass just outside the box and hitting a mid-height controlled shot past the visiting goalkeeper.

Moult’s goal added to a Steve Williams headed goal from an Omar Daley corner which saw the young defender jump unopposed in the box to head in. Williams and his defensive partner Shaun Duff started flat-footed allowing two chances in the first five minutes to test Lloyd Saxton in goal but that spell at the start and a pair of shots by Spencer Harris and David Heagrey at the end Avenue did little to threaten despite playing with spirit.

Spirit which City either lacked or controlled. Moult and former City man Tom Claisse both went in for a ball with studs showing and in League football both would have been punished the same but Claisse’s aggressive shove of Moult to the ground showed the difference in approach from the teams.

Which is not to say that City did not care – on the contrary, they do – but that Taylor’s side focus upset from incidents like that, stings from defeat, grumpiness from misplaced passes and pushes them into the performance. Avenue, seemingly, just push them into pushes.

Taylor watched the game from half way up the main stand trying to communicate with Junior Lewis and Wayne Jacobs on the bench with a series of hand signal and mimes which – in time – turned into a series of shouts. “Three subs?” Jacobs bellowed up to a nod, later before kids keeper Chris Elliott came on a head stuck itself over the dug out and was pointed at in a “am I coming on?” way. A couple of mobile phones maybe?

As technology failed City did not. A 433 after half time saw a team more resembling that which one might expect on Saturday with Gareth Evans being supported by James Hanson and Scott Neilson in the forward line which immediately looked lively. Hanson has grown as a player – in his play – and as a human – in his build – from his time last season looking a long way from the part timers he was playing against.

Evans moved well making himself an option always and held the ball when needed, bringing others into the game. Neilson charged up and down the right. Both got goals.

Evans’s reward for an inventive ball flipped over to Neilson was a return pass for the striker to accurately power in from the edge of the box to make the game 3-0. Ten minutes from time Neilson is given the ball and the freedom of the box to get a fourth.

The comprehensive nature of the win aside the game offered little for Taylor to learn. Luke O’Brien and Robbie Threlfall combined well down the left in the second half as they did at the end of last season, Evans looks to have brought his fine end of last year to the start of this, Lee Bullock looked controlled and quality as he did last year. You can see the theme building.

This was City’s first game of pre-season at Valley Parade – a bedding in for the new turf of which it is said with justification that one could play a snooker game on it – but it was the last game of a pre-season which went back to the start of April when Taylor’s side ensured they would stay in League Two.

Four months of build up to a season which starts on Saturday.