When we signed Calum Kavanagh from Middlesbrough in January it is fair to say he came to the club with a good pedigree and good reports from the Boro fans that keep a close eye on matters outside the first-team.
And on the pitch for Bradford City there initially looked to be flashes of a player that could make a big difference for us in the future and perhaps take some of the heat off of Andy Cook, the man we have almost relied on entirely for our goals.
The big standouts from his performances in a Bradford City shirt were his confidence and enthusiasm. Against Wycombe Wanderers he showed a great habit of taking shots whenever the opportunity to shoot arose. He wasn’t afraid to take on defenders and demonstrated that he had the key ingredients to be both provider and a regular goalscorer for the Bantams. This indeed was rewarded with a respectable tally of assists and goals in the appearances he made and the game time he was afforded.
Based on what I had seen, I had big expectation of Kavanagh for the 2024/25 season, going as far as saying I could see him being another 15 goal a season striker, who could be finding the net more often than not this campaign.
Football statistics aren’t complicated and the more shots you take, the more chance there is of you scoring. But to achieve the latter, you have to accept that it is a numbers game and you are also going to miss more than you score. But if you can get a decent percentage on target, which he was, the inevitable goals will follow.
Add to that his seemingly confident approach to the game, he looked like the kind of player we really needed if we are to have that never say die attitude you need to be among the contenders for promotion.
The Opposite Of The Midas Touch
But suddenly as the new season started, with Kavanagh now a starter, it all fell off of apart. It was a gradual thing, but at the same time all happened in a short space of time. And looking back on how things would pan out for him in the opening games, I could probably pinpoint it to one pass, one dribble or one missed attempt at goal that appears to have started to kill his confidence. I could, but his form at Bradford City crashing wasn’t something any of us were keeping an eye out for at the time.
But it did become apparent as game time wore on as he must have had the feeling of being the opposite of King Midas where everything he touches, well you get the idea. His poor form cannot be put down to a lack of effort, he isn’t a lazy player and is always trying to make something happen. But I think that is where the problems really get worse for a player like that, if he, like many footballers rely on confidence to perform at their best. With every mistake he made, he seemed to try something even more complex which would inevitably fail, he wasn’t giving up, he was trying harder to succeed, but as most of us will have experienced in life, when your luck is out, sometimes you just have to stop doing what you are doing. To use a gambling analogy, you have to just stop gambling and accept that the bet you did plan on putting on, will most probably win, and you will be wishing you had put the bet on. But the reality is if you had placed the bet, you’d have probably put all of your money on the wrong team because of a mouse slip and not realised until it was too late. Because that’s where your luck is right now, not only that, when you’re stuck in a situation like this, those mouse slips are more likely to happen. So granted, all you see is it being typical that your team wins the moment you decide not to put a bet on them, but in reality, something stupid would have happened, like a mouse slip that would have ended in tears anyway.
Was Dropping Kavanagh The Right Choice?
Graham Alexander has been quite ruthless this season in the way he has been quick to drop players, and one of the first examples we saw of it was when he dropped Kavanagh. He either did it because he simply couldn’t afford to risk keeping him in the side, or in the hope that the time out will do him good, much like dropping Andy Cook for a few games usually gets him firing on all cylinders again. But if it is the latter, it is a mistake, because Calum Kavanagh is not Andy Cook, and human beings need treating as individuals. I don’t know if Alexander has picked up this one fits all mentality from Ryan Sparks, something I will talk about in more detail in another article. But it is one of the many things that I believe is part of the bigger problem at the club.
But I digress. By dropping Calum Kavanagh, all it will have served to do is re-enforce any feelings he may have that nothing he is doing seems to work, and that maybe he’s just not good enough. I don’t know how much the club puts on psychology, and if the ownership of the club and those running it are anything to go by, I doubt it will be the right type, but Calum Kavanagh just needs to be taught to not over think his game and do what comes naturally and go back to basics until the elusive goal or assist materialises that will give him the boost he needs.
He also need reminding that we all have days and weeks where everything we touch turns to shit (there I said it), but there are ways of dealing with that, and he is still young and would benefit from learning techniques of how to deal with things like this. Because Kavanagh is not a poor player, we have seen signs of that last season. He is good enough to be in the starting eleven, but if he wants to keep his place, he needs to go back to basics with his game.
It was pretty obvious, especially against Grimsby Town away what was happening. Each time the ball came to him he’d take a bad touch or a pass or dribble attempt which would immediately be shut down and often result in his own team being put under unnecessary pressure. He would then look for something more ambitious to do to make up for the previous mistakes, and this makes the odds of something going wrong even more likely.
In my opinion Calum Kavanagh’s return to the starting-line up away to Morecambe kind of summed up the whole problem with Bradford City full stop. They brought him back in to replace Olly Sanderson who had previously had a poor game, the very man who when he came on for Kavanagh at his lowest ebb compounded his frustration by scoring, which on a personal level must have only served as a hammer blow and typify his season so far. Only to return to the team with none of the underlying issues resolved. Just a simplistic dropping from the team in the hope that he would be different when he returned to it.
Unsurprisingly he only lasted 65 minutes before being replaced by another player that was thrown on in the hope that something might be different from most of his other league appearances, Vadaine Oliver.
What Now For Calum Kavanagh?
So where does this leave Kav? Most likely even lower on confidence than before he started, in another game he tried to do things but nothing came off, this including a shot that should have at least been on target. But the difference this time was he didn’t look as full of endeavour that we at least got from him before he was dropped and instead looking like a player that shouldn’t be in the team at all.
As fans we really must remember that he is trying, its not like he is lazy or hiding or doesn’t want to be here. So getting on his back about his performances either in the ground or on social media won’t help. He will know already in his own mind what hasn’t been good enough, and being told it over and over by your own fans just puts more pressure on him when he plays his next match. There is nothing worse for your performance than being scared of making mistakes, because then you do begin to hide or over think things when the ball comes to you.
Luckily he is young enough to bounce back. But you also have to remember that the younger you are the slower time goes, so this period of poor form will feel like a lifetime to him when in reality is should only make up a very fleeting and easy to forget moment in a long career. However, if we are to get a tune out of him again at Bradford City, we need to know how to deal with players on an individual level, reminding them of why we signed them and the club need to employ sports psychologists with the right expertise to talk them through these blips. I’m not going to say it is “mental health” but it is of the mind, and not everything is about depression and anxiety, although there does look to be more and more of the latter creeping into his game, which is natural when you are young and lack the experience of dealing with not performing to the levels you’d expect yourself to be.
Club Psychology A Problem?
As a wider issue unfortunately hiring the right sports psychologist is easier said than done. Because the person hiring you has to have the a personality that is not afraid of criticism and is genuinely open-minded to things that are different from their own beliefs. Being blunt, a person with a toxic personality is going to be unable to recognise the traits and methods used by an expert who is self-aware enough to admit we are all imperfect and have to be treated as individuals rather than thinking there is some magic want that will fix things. And I think this is the big stumbling block at our club under the current owner and CEO. Maybe there is another reason other good managers saw something at our club they felt didn’t make for an open and positive working environment?
The wider problem is the club has a personality, and that is why regardless of who the manager is, we have always been destined to fail. And when you are part of an environment that is in denial and too afraid to speak out, it inevitably puts more pressure on those who have to front it out on the pitch. Its all well and good blaming players for not being able to cope with big crowds at home and the pressure that comes with playing for a club the size of Bradford City. But you have to ask why we keep signing players who struggle with it, when there are many clubs that are bigger and have more pressure than Bradford City?
You might think you need to be psychic to be able to tell which players are cut out for it and which aren’t before they’ve even kicked a ball for us. But it isn’t rocket science to a decent psychologist to know the right sort of questions to ask, and take note of the red flags of the little tells that what they are saying about being able to cope, doesn’t match with everything else they’ve said. It’s actually pretty easy if you know what to look for, and long term, by focusing more on the psychology of footballers, much like Phil Parkinson did, you find yourself signing more players that overachieve than those who underachieve, or worse still, as we have seen all too often, totally choke in a Bradford City shirt.
A New Approach Is Key
Unfortunately for Bradford City, whilst Stefan Rupp and Ryan Sparks are still at the club, we won’t see anything change in that department. Meanwhile a lot of other clubs are really seeing the benefits, and that’s not confined to the higher leagues, where money is the main source of success not he pitch. It is more important the in League One and League Two, even some National Leagues are seeing that role as something that can make recruitment less of a gamble. And for those already at the club, a few tweaks to how they react to certain things, what they are thinking at the moment in certain situations, can make a big difference to performance and be, literally a game changer.
And as things stand, this is all I think Calum Kavanagh needs, just someone who ask questions and then guide him to the right answers that will positively impact his next match. Otherwise things can start to slide downhill into anxiety and depression. A good sports psychologist will be there to help a sportsperson avoid ever getting to that stage in most cases.
So I think Calum Kavanagh will become that 15-20 goal a-season goalscorer, but whether it happens at Bradford City is where I have my doubts. Maybe he could be another player we can loan to Swindon Town and we will get to see it happen as a Bradford City player.
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