Jon Blakely's Canadian Chronicles
Thursday 03 January, 2002
Hold the front page- City have another new manager
Maybe it's the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is now between us, maybe it's because Geoffrey Richmond was arrogant enough to tell me my thoughts were not wanted about his Bradford City, maybe it's a relegation hangover - I don't know, but the events of the last week have not surprised me one bit.
I think there has been a certain amount of inevitability about what has happened to City's latest Team Manager, Jim Jefferies that is.
The Chairman claimed that the team was slowly becoming all Jim Jefferies' players, so the blame goes to JJ, but I am sure if JJ was given a little more cash then the players he chose wouldn't have been the ones he ended up with. Sure Gary Locke, Eoin Jess and Juanjo would have been signed regardless, but maybe he would have gone for a different player than Andy Tod and he probably only had Lee Makel because he knew Makel was desperate and cheap. Matt Etherington has turned out to be a great find, but there is no way that will turn out to be permanent ("Over budget this year, over budget next year" - is this with or without Carbone's wages?)
In the games that I saw under Jim Jefferies in the Premiership, he seemed to put out teams who could pass but had little killer instinct, the teams actually seemed to have an inferiority complex (but maybe that was City's problem all along - Ipswich Town never proclaimed "were gonna do our best just to survive!!")
I haven't seen any games since relegation although I listen to all the games on the internet and it is obvious to notice a few problems he is leaving City with.
Certainly the ball over the top is a major problem as is defending of set-pieces, and the new man must sort those out, and then to get the best XI players in each position out on the pitch. You know, left backs at centre half, centre halves at right back, Eoin Jess playing anywhere up field where no one else is penciled in, Stuart McCall at right back.
Now Nicky Law has been appointed and he must bring stability and a little bit of ambition. Even Stuart McCall has said that we are on the verge of a relegation fight instead of gunning for a playoff place, forgive me Stuart but any fans reading that are just not going to flood down to VP to see a relegation fight. Any floating fans don't want to see a dour team fighting for points. They sit at home on a Saturday morning and look to see where they might see an electric game for their 20 quid. I'm afraid that Stuart may have counted out a few thousand off each gate. So instead of 14,000 'die hards' plus 4,000 people who want to see City go out and give it their all in a bid to get into the playoffs, it will just be 14,000.
I like the appointment of Nicky Law, and see him as just the man for the job. Lets hope he gets more luck with injuries and can steadily bring the average age of the squad down. Sure this season maybe a right off as far as the automatic promotion places is concerned but heck who wants to go back up with the squad we have now? I would much rather re-enter the premiership with a team which has had time to bond and give the management team time to get the whole squad in order. Too much quality has slipped away from this team (O'Brien, Windass, Carbone, Clarke (yes, him as a player)) but maybe a playoff place is attainable, so all hope shouldn't be gone (Mr McCall!!) and although promotion wouldn't be ideal, it would be very entertaining seeing (or listening) City making a push up the 1st division.
Looking on the bright side, Bradford City may well have the best ground in the second division next year.