By Jason McKeown

33 days on from sacking Mark Hughes, today Bradford City have finally announced the Welshman’s successor – with Graham Alexander appointed the new Bantams manager. Chris Lucketti joins him as City’s new assistant manager.

The 52-year-old Alexander joins City on a two-and-a-half-year deal, having been sacked by MK Dons just 21 days ago himself. Alexander lasted only 16 games in the Dons’ dugout before being given the boot. On his Valley Parade unveiling Alexander said, “I am very excited about the role, the potential of the team and the club. Joining a club, you have to look at the short-term improvements you can make, but also look at the potential of what you can do. Here, for me, that scope is endless.”

City have turned to Alexander to be the next permanent manager after offering the position to Danny Cowley last week. Terms were said to have been agreed, before Cowley performed a U-turn and rejected the role. He is said to live in the Lincolnshire area. And with Grimsby and Lincoln City both in the hunt for a new manager, staying more local for family reasons probably holds greater appeal. Smart money would be on Cowley taking one of these two jobs, with Grimsby reportedly frontrunners.

The Grimsby and Lincoln positions only became available in the last three weeks, so if Cowley did initially apply for and want the Bradford City job, the slowness of the Bantams in making an appointment probably cost them their number one choice.

So instead Alexander takes the reins. It is not an appointment to set pulses racing, but he does have a track record that suggests he could prove successful. And given Alexander takes over from Mark Trueman, who took over from Kevin McDonald, who took over from Hughes, some greater stability in the dugout can only be a good thing.

Who is Graham Alexander?

As a player, Alexander was one of the great lower league stalwarts. He is only the second outfield player in English football history to have made 1,000 professional appearances. Only Peter Shilton and Tony Ford have played more English league matches.

Alexander emerged through the Scunthorpe ranks and made his debut in 1988. He stayed for seven years at Glanford Park, before a four-year spell at Luton. This was followed by eight years at Preston – the club he is best known for playing for – and four seasons at Burnley, which included helping the Clarets win promotion to the Premier League. Alexander finished his career at his beloved Preston. To North End fans, he holds a similar level of reverence as Gary Jones does to Bradford City supporters.

Alexander was originally a right back, but managed to successfully rejuvenate his career after then-Burnley manager Owen Coyle converted him to defensive midfielder. It is said by Burnley fans that this positional decision was the turning point that inspired their promotion that season, with a then-37-year-old Alexander going on to become the fourth oldest goalscorer in Premier League history the year after.

That was when he scored a penalty. And it’s something Alexander is especially famous for. He netted 78 penalties across his 17-year career in all competitions, with 65 of those coming in league competitions.

If we don’t include a short spell in caretaker charge of Preston, Alexander’s first managerial position was at Fleetwood Town. He was appointed at Highbury in December 2012 – just days before City defeated Arsenal in the League Cup – as the ambitious Seaside club sought to push on during their first year in the Football League.

In his first full season as manager, Alexander guided Fleetwood to promotion, via a Wembley play off final victory over Burton Albion. He later revealed, “We edged a tight final 1-0, and at the end of the game I recalled something David Moyes had said to me: ‘If you don’t win in your first job, you might not get a second.’ So my first thought at full-time was: ‘Now I might get another job at some point!'”

Alexander was sacked by Fleetwood in September 2015 after a poor start to the season (two wins from first 10 league games). The season before – Fleetwood’s first ever campaign at League One level – Alexander had guided the Cod Army to a respectable 10th-place finish, just six points shy of the play offs. He took the dismissal hard, reflecting after, “It was a really hard time, and I think I slept for a week. There was a bit of me moping, but I think I was also just knackered.

“I was an absolute slob for a week, but that didn’t sit right with me and by the end of that week I was ready to crack on. I had some really good phonecalls from people within the game, too. Sean Dyche rang me, because it had happened to him at Watford. He told me exactly what I needed to hear.”

Alexander’s next managerial stint came at a club he was familiar with – Scunthorpe, where his playing career had started. He came in at the end of the 2015/16 season and started to build some momentum, which they took into the next year. In 2016/17 (the year Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp first took charge at Valley Parade and Stuart McCall returned as City boss), Scunthorpe led the table for a large part of the season. They ultimately finished in the play offs, losing to a Millwall side in the semi finals who would of course go onto beat City in the final.

A year later, Scunthorpe were once again in play off contention. Standing fifth with seven games to go. That’s when Alexander was surprisingly sacked. Scunthorpe did finish in the play offs (losing again), but began to collapse. There are clear similarities between the controversial decision of City to sack McCall in 2017/18 and Scunthorpe giving Alexander the boot a few weeks later. Neither club would touch the heights of League One play off positions after. Indeed a year after Scunthorpe dismissed Alexander, they were relegated to League Two, along with the Bantams.

By this point, Alexander had another promotion on his CV. He took over Salford City, then in the National League, and guided them to promotion to the Football League, again through the play offs. With Salford’s high profile and heavy financial backing, it was the least that was expected. And when Salford finished 11th in their first season in the EFL (the 2019/20 season, which was curtailed early due to Covid) there was a feeling Alexander was underachieving with the resources he had.

Alexander was sacked five games into the following season, despite the fact Salford were unbeaten and fifth in the table. It was a decision Gary Neville has since admitted he got wrong, saying in 2022, “Graham Alexander should have never left this club last season. I should have never made that decision that I made.”

Next up for Alexander was claret and amber – but North of the border. He took charge at Scottish Premier League outfit Motherwell in January 2021, with the Steelmen in deep relegation trouble. Alexander kept them up, and in 2021/22 they had a very good first half to the season that saw them competing near the top. The second half of the season was less impressive, with Motherwell scraping Europa Conference League qualification. But when in July 2022 Alexander oversaw a qualifying round defeat to Sligo Rovers, he called a meeting with the board and an arrangement was made for him to leave.

Alexander later stated of where his time went wrong at Fir Park, “We got to January in fourth position in the table. It was a fantastic first year, just under a 50 per cent win ratio, but we lost Tony Watt to Dundee United, and Devante Cole in the previous summer. We had lost our two top strikers but made a decision, because part of the club philosophy is to bring players through, to not spend that money on readymade players to come in…There were things going on I’m not happy with, I’m sure the supporters weren’t happy with, and we came to the conclusion it was the best time for me to go.”

Alexander sat out the 2022/23 season, but this summer was appointed MK Dons boss. Having just been relegated from League One, the Dons were tipped for promotion and it began well enough with four wins from the first five games leading to Alexander picking up August’s manager of the month award. But it fell away from there, and they went eight games without a win before Alexander was sacked.

Part of the challenge Alexander faced was style of play, with MK Dons trying to build themselves as a club who play attractive passing football. When they started the season well, they were averaging just 44% possession. But Alexander was put under pressure to play a more expansive, attractive way.

Just five days before he was sacked, Alexander spoke about this conflict of substance vs style. “When I first started managing, there was no talk of ‘style of play’ or anything like that,” he stated. “When I went to Fleetwood, their aim was win promotion, that was it. There was never mention of a style. In fact, no-one has said that until I came to this club [MK Dons]. I was told we need to win, but we have a certain identity.”

On the drop off in form, Alexander continued, “Our possession stats, control of games, our ball retention, our pass accuracy has gone up, the number of shots and expected goals has gone up, expected goals against has dropped significantly. All those metrics have improved. The things that have gone down are shot accuracy and the results.

“Everyone wants a win, but at certain clubs, you have to win a certain way. And if you look at the stats from the last month, you’d think we were a certain type of team who plays a certain type of way.”

It seems that Alexander’s initial success and sudden demise at MK was partly due to being put under pressure to play a different way. But when results fell away, there was no patience for him in trying to play a more possession-based style demanded. The fact that MK Dons went straight out and hired Mike Williamson says much about their pursuit of footballing excellence.

The irony for Alexander is that – in Bradford City – he takes over from a manager in Hughes who stuck too closely to a principle of playing passing football, which supporters grew frustrated with. Alexander is more direct, more pragmatic. And he might just find that his new public are more willing to embrace it than the MK Dons audience was. You can see a good fit here.

That said, there’s no question Alexander’s managerial record is mixed. Promotions at Fleetwood and Salford, play off and European qualification at Scunthorpe and Motherwell, but a consistent pattern of a slump in results causing clubs to act.

Two wins in his last 10 at Fleetwood. One win in his final 13 at Scunthorpe. Four wins in 23 ended his tenure at Motherwell. Eight games without a win at MK Dons got him the sack. Even at Salford where he was treated harshly, Alexander’s first nine games of that season had yielded only three wins.

Alexander has an overall managerial win rate of 42.8%, but also has a losing record of one in three games. There’s reasons to believe he could be a decent appointment for City, but plenty of evidence to suggest he could fail.

What are the expectations for Alexander?

It has to be to push for promotion. This season.

After the recent loss at Sutton, City are slumped in 16th place but are still only six points off the play offs. There are still 30 games to play this season, and if Alexander can quickly get up and running City could quickly catch up the early pace-setters.

That said, recent League Two history is against Alexander and City in that regard. WOAP reader Jon Wolfe recently put forward a stat that – over the past 10 years – no club that has been promoted out of League Two sacked their manager mid-season. Jon followed this up with an illuminating piece two weeks ago which found that – since 2004 – only six clubs have been promoted from League Two after changing managers mid-season.

WOAP’s Alex Scott has built further on Jon’s work by analysing the impact of League Two clubs sacking managers mid-season when in the bottom half of the table (like City were where then sacked Hughes). Since 2013, there have been 100 sackings from clubs in these circumstances – and just one team (Tranmere Rovers in 2020/21) went on to even reach the play offs (Keith Hill took over a Rovers side 18th and weirdly was sacked just before Rovers’ play off semi final).

Whilst most bottom half League Two teams improved from the point of sacking their manager mid-season, less than 10% improved by five or more league positions. Just eight managed to finish in the top half.

Hopefully, Alexander can confound those dire statistics by pushing City on for promotion. But if the Bantams do succeed from here, they’re truly going to be making history. The data is against them.

Sacking Hughes so early in the season can only be done to give City a chance of getting promoted. Right now, that still has to be the target. There’s too much football to play to write this off and start planning already for next season.

What does all this mean for those at the top of Bradford City?

There’s little doubt this has been a tough period for Stefan Rupp and Ryan Sparks, with serious questions posed about their ability to successfully run this football club.

This is the 10th permanent managerial appointment of Rupp’s seven-year tenure, and the fifth time Sparks has agreed a contract with a manager. You would think that some pretty big lessons have been learned from such turnover. Lessons that would put the club in a strong position to have handled this change of manager much better. Lessons that would have helped the club put a strategy in place well before Hughes was handed his P45.

Looking from the outside, that doesn’t appear to have been the case at all. We’ve already talked about the recruitment and communication failings in depth here. The club dug themselves into a hole, and with it Rupp and Sparks have damaged their reputation amongst supporters.

In such a sticky situation, especially when Cowley turned the job down, the choice of next Bradford City manager was not an easy one. In a field of uninspiring potential appointments, opting for Alexander is probably the safest route to have taken. It’s not especially risky. And with such a patchy track record of picking managers, this doesn’t seem like the time for the club to plump for a leftfield, audacious appointment.

Bringing in Alexander won’t inspire a resurgence of confidence in Rupp and Sparks from supporters. Indeed, it is difficult to argue right now that sacking Hughes to bring in Alexander will improve the club. But it does at least allow a line to be drawn over such a dismal saga. A decision has been made, and only time will tell if it is the right one.

What Rupp and Sparks especially need to focus on right now is doing everything they can to help Alexander succeed. There have been whisperings from other recently sacked City managers that they just don’t get the support from within the club when it really matters. That when the chips are down, they are left hung out to dry. Derek Adams – who has been able to revive his reputation this season with more heroics at Morecambe – has just spoken publicly for the first time about his time managing City, which doesn’t reflect well on the club.

Adams was speaking on the Pilgrims Podcast and says of City:

“It has the biggest supporter base in the league, it’s one of the smallest clubs inside in the league. It’s got no structure. No idea on its way out. Doesn’t own its own stadium. Doesn’t own its training ground. And has no foundation to it. I like many managers think I can go there and change it. I thought I could, I probably could have. The problem is, you’ve got to keep the supporters onside for long enough. I didn’t win enough home games, at the time we drew too many home games. I still think I’d have got them in the play offs that season, probably got them out. That’s me saying that.

“But what did I do wrong? I probably was too honest. I didn’t do what Bradford City’s Twitter account says every time they get beat ‘sorry supporters’. I didn’t say that enough.

“To be fair to the club’s CEO, Ryan Sparks, he has spent the club’s money getting new seats for the stadium. They’re doing that. They have to spend £500k on rent each year, just to start the season. They then have to do maintenance on the stadium as well. Not easy. But the best advice I could give to a Bradford City supporter is ‘support your manager through thick and thin, and eventually you might get through that’.

“But it’s not just the manager. The CEO, the board of directors. If you’ve got 20 managers over 20 years, your recruitment process or the people at the top – there’s got to be something wrong somewhere.”

Ouch.

The Bradford City managerial position has been labelled “the impossible job” by the excellent Mark Douglas recently. There’s certainly more than a ring of truth in that statement, and those who are running the club have a duty to give their choice of manager the best possible chance of succeeding. Rupp and Sparks’ reputations are now entwinned to Alexander’s. This is an appointment that will be retrospectively criticised if it doesn’t work out. The pair’s judgement and ability to choose a manager will be questioned even more heavily. They are running out of chances.

The mood amongst supporters is as low as it has been in years. Possibly since relegation from League One, five seasons ago. It comes after a period where interest and support for the club had enjoyed a strong resurgence, and where a sense of togetherness had remerged. Hughes paid the price for his role in the sudden demise, but others are clearly culpable too and must also share in the responsibility. In appointing Alexander, Rupp and Sparks have the chance to demonstrate their worth as much as the new man in the dugout.

Tensions are running high, with social media talk of protest and boycotts against Rupp. I shared my views on the ownership situation last month and nothing has changed for me. The problems are not chiefly a lack of investment or because the owner lives abroad. Ultimately, Bradford City continues to underachieve with the resources it has. The club has to perform better on and off the pitch, and address every area where they’re falling short. If there really is no room for mediocrity at this football club, the standards and culture have to improve.

For now, it’s hard not to sit here – feeling weary, jaded and cynical – and believe that in choosing Alexander we’ve implemented anything more strategically-minded than rolling the dice once again, hoping our luck turns. And maybe this time it will. But until this football club starts genuinely displaying joined up, long-term thinking and fixes its structural issues, the odds are that it will be reaching for the dice once again in the near future.  

Alexander is a competent football manager. To succeed, he needs a competent football club. After a worrying period where Bradford City have looked anything but proficient, it’s time for every single person at the club to prove they’re up to the task.  

Categories: Opinion

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