Levi Sutton has become the latest player to re-sign for Bradford City having signed a 2 year deal with the Bantams. Due to a photo being leaked on Twitter this morning the news won’t have come as a big shock when it was finally announced. Many already expected him to put pen to paper when Bradford City first published the retained list. Sutton has become the third player to pledge his future with the Bantams along with Lee Angol and Matty Foulds. And so far the biggest signing of the summer has seen loanee Jamie Walker sign a permanent deal with the club.
Levi Sutton is a player that is massively underrated, probably mainly due to him often being played in a full back role rather than in centre-midfield where his work rate and determination really make a big difference. He is a player that I would feel comfortable being in the starting eleven in that position and no doubt his presence in the dressing room has a positive impact on everyone around him. There are so many reasons to be pleased that Sutton has committed his immediate future to Bradford City and there is so much more to come from him.
One thing that has come out of the contract announcement is that Bradford City are most certainly drip feeding the fans information about signings for one reason or another. What is disappointing about this is that it goes against one of the fundamental things that both Ryan Sparks and Stefan Rupp have said the club sees as important, and that is communicating with fans. It is understandable that the club won’t communicate with fans about players that they’re targeting, because this risks the deal they are doing, but for fans to have to wait five days for the announcement of the new contract signed by Levi Sutton is a bit of a slap in the face. Not only that, it is yet another sign that Stefan Rupp doesn’t take being honest with Bradford City fans as seriously as some think.
One of the names that seems a certainty to have already signed a contract with Bradford City is Luke Hendrie as it is unlikely there will be many clubs in the EFL chasing his signature and further fuel to the speculation was added when Ryan Sparks stated in an interview on iFollow that “we’ve got a handful of players signed that will be announced in due course”. This most likely refers to both Levi Sutton and Luke Hendrie, and sounds like Bradford City are doing a bit of stage management for social media or season ticket sales. So for all we know Hendrie has already signed, as would be expected, but the club aren’t telling us.
Once the club do confirm that Luke Hendrie is a Bantam for at least another season we can switch our attention to wondering whether the club are able to hold on to the key players who were offered new contracts, namely Elliot Watt, Charles Vernam and Paudie O’Connor. This is when we will get a hint of how our competitive budget is holding up in the face of competition from other clubs. In the case of the back to back winner of the Bradford City Player of the Year Award Paudie O’Connor it is looking highly unlikely that he will be joining Sheffield Wednesday after the Sheffield Star poured cold water on how much interest The Owls have in signing him. This is good news for Bradford City, as the rumoured interest from Sunderland could be the only Championship club interested in him, and their promotion to that league could be a reason they also choose not to sign him.
Another bit of news that has come in very late is that we have sold an academy player, Sahil Bashir to Brighton & Hove Albion. According to the Telegraph & Argus, this actually happened as long ago as the start of the 2021/22 season. Looking at his social media, it does seem like Bashir has been at the club for a while, but once again the communications are confusing. Under normal circumstances the transfer of an academy player probably wouldn’t be newsworthy, but a deal that is reported to be worth in the region of £250,000 is big news. Not only that, it will have a major impact on our playing budget, something that I have banged on about at length about. Baring in mind we won’t get the whole £250,000 in one go, there will be parts of the deal that are based on appearances etc, it will still give us a significant boost in recruitment. One thing is for certain, Derek Adams did not see any of that money, because he had used up all of his budget and that was exactly the same as what was spent the previous season. But it is more likely that the money from Bashir will be available for this summer transfer window.
I will try to avoid going full on conspiracy theorist on the Bashir transfer, I’m not one of those that believes Stefan Rupp will have used the money to buy himself a new car, because Bradford City is a Limited Company and the money from transfers cannot go straight into the chairmans pocket. He could take out a dividend of course, or increase his wage, but I find these things unlikely. However it is a little bit suspect that whilst some fans still believe that Stefan Rupp puts money into the player budget from his own pocket (something which is equally as ridiculous as the new car claims, for similar reasons), there has been talk from Ryan Sparks about an increase in the playing budget this season. It was a claim I found highly doubtful as it would probably mean some level of investment from Stefan Rupp, but now makes sense on the back of the news about the extra money from that deal. It does however feel that somewhere down the line, somebody wanted to create the impression that Rupp is the reason for the extra money in the budget, and had it not been for a source from Brighton, it is doubtful that the news would ever have got out (or at least not until a few years later).
With Elliot Watt currently abroad on holiday it is unlikely we will hear anything over the next week and a half with regards to his future. But many have already written off our chances of retaining him. The longer the decision of the trio takes, evidently the less tempting what has been put on the table by Bradford City is.
In reality we should be able to hold on to at least one of the three if we have an “extra competitive budget” so it will be very interesting to see how things pan out with the trio over the coming weeks.