It is becoming a bit of a running theme that any time Bradford City put on a decent show, and actually do what they’re supposed to do, there are a slew of the same articles about the Bantams churning out the same repeated overestimations about some kind of sudden change in the clubs prospects. All are usually only based solely on one event. The joyful reaction to the rare interviews with Stefan Rupp lead to claims of yet another “reconnection”, only for nothing to change. A new manager is hired and suddenly there are rehashes of articles gone by from the time the previous manager was hired. The moment we win a match the same “turned the corner” lines are trotted out again.
And now, on the back of a draw with Tranmere Rovers on Good Friday, in a match that was possibly our best performance of the season, yet again, the same old sources are pointing to one excellent performance that under normal circumstances deserved a win, as being a reason to look forward to next season, even going as far as saying you should buy your season ticket for 2022/23 on the back of it. As a fan, of course you should renew your season ticket, but if you are making your decision based on just one match, you really need to stop getting carried away. And the same must be said of those who are making the same old statements based on nothing more than one small event in a quagmire of evidence that tells us different.
How many performances like this would you reasonably say have the same standard we saw against Tranmere Rovers this season? Because to put it into perspective, this season Bradford City, in the league alone have played 3,780 minutes of football, of which, 90 of them were in the last match. Do you think you can squeeze out 500 minutes in total this season, or even 250 minutes? Or out of the 1,890 minutes of league football the Bantams have played in 2022, how much more than 90 minutes of quality, determined football from the team could you squeeze out? And this is the main thrust of my point, what we saw on Good Friday was, well, good, and we deserved more out of it. But in reality when you look at the matches where we have been poor and scraped a point, or in some cases three, only getting a point out of this match could be described as karma.
Don’t mistake what I’m saying as negativity or simply looking to bash the team, that’s not what this is about, I will get to the positives in due course. Of course a reason to think that change is possible and there is a glimmer of promise, but as things stand, it is just a glimmer. I am saying that it requires more than one good performance in a blue moon, and it actually makes our fixture puts a whole new importance on the match against Colchester United.
It was the performance that Bradford City supporters have waited for all season, and had this been the norm, rather than the exception, our position in League Two would most certainly be much higher than it is now. Having taken the lead against Tranmere Rovers early on, for once deservedly, Elliot Watt can be forgiven for being red carded for his second bookable offence. In defence of Watt, had the referee dealt with the foul on him before the situation got out of hand, there would have been no need to issue him with a yellow card in the first place. Also I will add that maybe his red card came from his over-enthusiasm and a bit of inexperience in dealing with that. I think it would be a bit unfair of us to blame him for the disadvantage it put the team in afterwards or condemn him for what can best described as acting before he thinks. He was going for it, just like what the fans ask of the players, yes he made a mistake, but I’m sure there’s a lesson he will have learned, and he will now box a little more clever without losing the same determination and enthusiasm that lead to his sending off.
Luke Hendrie’s third time lucky cross that allowed Jamie Walker to score was a moment that summed up the performance of the team. Time and time again, very early in the match his decision making was poor, sometimes it just looked like he was lacking confidence to move the ball into dangerous areas and taking too much time. He looked to be over thinking passes resulting in the Bantams losing the initiative. Then it happened, In came his first cross, it was poor and easily cleared, then he got the ball again, this time it was better, but too slow, too easy to clear. The third was in the Goldilocks zone, it was just right! That’s perseverance, that’s what happens when you keep trying to improve, and you could kind of see that determination in his face that this cross would be better than the last. I could list more individual performances that were worth talking about, but they will be widely covered in match reports.
Dion Pereira is putting together a string of performances that are sending out a message that he can put he could be the real deal, it was great to see him putting himself about and tracking back more, as well as demonstrating his evident technical ability. His next stage is to show he can do this over a full season, and so far there looks to be the shoots of a player who can make it in the higher echelons of the football league. We may not be able to afford to sign him on a permanent basis, nor may Bradford City be a club he would feel is suitable to join on a permanent basis, but the option of another full season on loan at Valley Parade would certainly put him in a much better position to become a regular starter at Luton Town, or any other clubs in the Championship. He may have to deal with the frustration that his boss Nathan Jones may still feel a handful of competitive matches in the EFL is still not enough to convince him he’s ready. A season long loan at Valley Parade would give him enough games under his belt to prove consistency, or better still that these kind of performances are his baseline. And this brings me back onto original point about the performance by the team as a whole on Good Friday and what it means in the bigger scheme of things. This performance only tells us whether we can feel optimistic about the players we have and the team as a whole if how they played against Tranmere Rovers is a bench mark, not just outstanding performance.
In this case, the performance deserved a win. But it isn’t one-off performances that guarantee an instant change to your fortunes, you don’t immediately get rewarded because you’ve done the right thing, the rewards come from consistently putting in that same level of effort and determination. And by doing that match in match out, sooner or later the law of averages will tilt in your favour, the wins will come and the confidence and belief that accompany it build the foundations for more wins and challenges for promotion. There are no doubts that this is a message Mark Hughes will hammer in to the players, and he will demand that the players leave the pitch knowing they have given everything. And the Tranmere Rovers match is the first sign of that message perhaps sinking in, but they have to go again, and again.
One thing the players can take away from the match is the reception they got from the fans. This happened because finally they did their bit to get the fans behind them by putting their bodies on the line and making the kind of challenges that rally the crowd. It was obvious to everyone that each player was working hard and not hiding. Win, lose, or draw, it really would be a negative fan who would refuse to give the team the credit where it is due and give them a decent ovation at full-time. And on Friday it is safe to say, even if City had conceded a second late goal, they’d have still got warmly clapped off of the pitch for the shift they’d put in, and they’d still have deserved it.
All in all it was probably, in a strange sort of way, a good thing that this performance wasn’t rewarded with all three points. Because to earn something, it take more than one excellent performance, and in life you play the odds game. If you put yourself in a position for positive things to happen, you are much more likely to benefit from it than if you don’t.
So as things stand, we move on to Colchester United, where another similar performance will add more into the bank of positivity. The least we should demand is the same level of performance until the end of the season, after all it is only 4 games they need to be consistent for.
Far from this away day to Colchester United being a meaningless match, it actually has a lot of meaning, because when many players at a club in our position would already be on holiday, can we show that even when there’s nothing to play for, they can play like they’re fighting for promotion. This would be another reason to feel a bit more optimistic about the 2022/23 season.