By Jason McKeown

In the build up to last month’s Bradford City horror show at Notts County, the new Bantams manager Graham Alexander shared with Sky Sports some relatively modest aims for the rest of the season. “There’s no end target for me, it’s just about changing the momentum.”

It wasn’t exactly the most compelling of ambitions. Not something to sell season tickets on the back of. But given the mess that City had got themselves into – a mess that would become even more apparent after 45 minutes of dismal Bantams football at Meadow Lane – it was an understandable first goal for Alexander to aim for.

Stop the rot. Reverse the slide. Get the feelgood factor back. And then see where it takes City.

Four-and-a-half games later, and after back-to-back league victories and progress to the last 16 of the Football League Trophy, it appears Alexander has achieved that initial objective. The Bantams are on a four-match winning streak, netting 13 goals and conceding just once. Tyler Smith has scored eight goals in eight games. Andy Cook has three in his last four. Richie Smallwood is showing some of his best form since joining the club. The defence looks stronger. And we’ve got Harry Chapman, Vadaine Oliver and Alex Pattison returning from long-term injuries to bolster the options.

Momentum is back at BD8. The mood music is changing. 

Bradford City welcome Alexander’s former club, Salford City, this weekend firmly looking upwards instead of down. They are still sat in the bottom half of the table – and a fairly hefty five points off the play offs – but they head into the festive period in much better fettle than they were at half time at Meadow Lane.

So what’s changed? We’ve had a look at some of the underlying numbers on Bradford City’s season – and the answer is: not a huge amount, but enough. Alexander has not come in and ripped everything up. He’s tweaked things, even reverting to the approach that City began the season – and is so far making it more effective. Momentum has been found without any great revolution.

And that’s how it should be. The danger of a mid-season managerial change is that the club goes from one style of manager to something completely different. The apparent need for change resulting in a reset that often has mixed results.

The most striking example in the recent past for me was when Colin Todd was sacked in February 2007, with captain David Wetherall appointed until the end of the season. Wetherall went for a more high intense, kick and rush style than Todd’s patient 4-4-2, with extra fitness and training sessions put on designed to boost the players’ stamina. It didn’t work, with a mid-season change of fitness approach resulting in the players running out of steam almost every week. In eight of Wetherall’s first 10 games in charge, City conceded a goal in the final 15 minutes. They won just one and lost six of those games, slumping from 16th in the table to second bottom of the league. They were ultimately relegated from League One with a game to spare.  

Back in the present, there were evidently things wrong under Mark Hughes that meant the change in the dugout was made. But the situation was far from irretrievable. The plan far from doomed to failure. And though Alexander might have long-term aims on transforming City’s approach, he’s shown smartness in slowly building on what he has.

To tell the story of City’s season so far and what’s different, we’ve looked at a number of key performance indicators (KPIs), using match statistics by WhoScored.com.

Shots for and against – how often City are getting shots at goal and how many they’re allowing the opposition to have.

Possession – enough said, but worth recalling the startling facts WOAP’s own Alex Scott uncovered about Hughes’ tenure and the huge difference in results between City having 55% or more possession, compared to when they have less of the ball. In short, the more City have the ball, the less successful they are.

Passes – how often City are passing the ball around to each other.

Crosses, long balls and short passes – how much of each type of pass City are producing overall, which tells us something about the playing style.

Average pass streak – the average number of passes City achieve before they lose the ball (the higher the number, the more they’re keeping possession).

A quick note to say we’re not going to discuss expected goals (xG) as the findings right now are fairly inconclusive. We’ve also only focused on league games, as stat websites do not give us enough data on Football League Trophy games.

Dividing the season into four

The story of Bradford City’s season can loosely be told in four parts. First up, there was Hughes playing three at the back. Then there was Hughes going to 4-2-3-1. Part three was Kevin McDonald’s caretaker tenure. And now we are in part four – the early days of Alexander.

Let’s go through these four chapters.

1) Hughes playing three at the back

The enigma of Hughes’ early season tactical reshuffle was just how cautious it proved – which I’m not sure was the original plan. In pre-season, Hughes’ three at the back was bold, adventurous and exciting. City scored several goals through a high press, but conceded plenty too. The Entertainers was the optimistic nickname floated during the friendly games.

If only.

I don’t think we can underestimate the negative impact of losing at Crawley on the opening day of the season. A bad, bad day at the office immediately put Hughes under pressure, and he reverted to his cautious tendencies. It meant that City’s early season performances were characterised by timidness and low risk. It was dull, and it was not exactly effective.

The stats tell this story. Look at the shots for and against. From a total of 33 at Crawley, to just 16 for the Grimsby game – the last match where Hughes started with three at the back.

The number of passes per game gradually increased as the season went on, which is reflected in the possession stats. City kept the ball just fine, but not a great deal was happening in either penalty box.

Not so much The Entertainers, more The Mundanes.

2) Hughes 4-2-3-1

Under some pressure from fans, Hughes then reverted to four at the back and the 4-2-3-1 approach he mainly used in 2022/23.

And at this point, well, he kinda lost his way.

Look at those possession and pass stats for the Harrogate game!

All that passing, all that control, and yet City relied on a late Jamie Walker header from a goalkeeper mistake to rescue a point. In front of Stefan Rupp, making a rare visit to West Yorkshire, Hughes was booed by the Kop at the final whistle. A nail in the coffin.

For Hughes’ final four games before he was sacked, average possession, number of passes per game went up. Yet shots on goal – for and against – went down further. There was also a small but significant increase in the overall percentage of short passes undertaken, and a reduction in crosses and long balls.

What this shows is that City became even more timid and cautious. Even less entertaining. They passed and passed and passed. But they lacked bravery. And that ultimately cost Hughes his job.

3) McDonald

Appointed caretaker player manager, Kevin McDonald initially had a striking impact and engineered a very welcome seven points from a possible nine. He simplified the approach, and employed a slightly higher level of risk. Of all the four parts we’re talking about today, this was the period where wide players found the most enjoyment (partly because McDonald actually picked them!)

Shots on goal for and against both ticked upwards, possession and number of passes both went down. City were more effective results-wise, with points per game rising to 1.4.

But was it a complete success? The smallness of the sample size means that some of the initial trends would perhaps have reverted to type over time. Just look at McDonald’s last game in charge, away at Sutton. City had just nine attempts on goal, 65.7% possession and produced 533 passes (the latter stat was the third highest of the season at that point).

The Sutton stats were very similar to what City had been doing at the end of Hughes’ tenure, showing the limitations of McDonald’s tweaks and the long-term need for someone else to take charge.

McDonald got City back to basics, which at the time was so important. But – very understandably, given he is a player first and didn’t want the job full time – McDonald did not seem to have a plan for building on that.

4) Alexander

Which brings us onto Alexander, and another small sample size that demands caveats. Not least, his first game in charge – at home to Barrow – where the stats are completely different to the subsequent three league games at the helm. Against Barrow, City had 65.8% possession and produced 621 passes, whilst only having nine shots on goal. That all sounds very Hughesball.

As we all know, at half time at Notts County in game two, Alexander moved away from that. Three at the back returned, with City less possession-based and more direct. Since then, you can see a notable rise in shots on goal and shots against – and a huge drop off in possession and passes per game.

Take out the Barrow game, and the difference is even more stark. In the last three games City have averaged 40% possession, 341 passes per game and 16.3 shots on goal.

The average number of crosses is also on the rise, from just 18.3 per game under Hughes to 24.3 under Alexander. When you have someone with the aerial prowess of Andy Cook – the seventh-best player in League Two for winning aerial duals this season – getting more crosses into the box makes a lot of sense. 

Here’s the table overall for Alexander’s first four league games in charge:

These are early days, but there is a clear pattern emerging. City are now more direct, braver and attack-minded. They are leaving themselves more open at the back (meaning the opposition are having more attempts at goal), but with the extra centre half there is some balance to the greater risk approach.

Conclusions

Looking at each part of City’s season against wider League Two stats underlines the change in effectiveness. If we are to agree that Hughes’ 4-2-3-1 approach was probably the weakest period in terms of results, the 59.8% average possession of then would rank City the second highest in League Two right now – but in terms of average shots per game, the 11.5 would position City fourth lowest in the division. So lots of the ball, but not nearly enough of an attacking threat to be successful.

In contrast the 14.5 average shots per game City are currently managing under Alexander would be the joint fourth highest in the division.

All in all, this season we’ve seen a clear correlation of less possession resulting in more shots on goal, which in turn leads to better results. City have not won a single game this season where they had more than 52% possession (this includes all four of their Football League Trophy victories). Under Hughes, they tried to keep the ball to win matches, but it just wasn’t working.

Alexander’s approach seems to be more successful, but it of course early days and there are some question marks over how entertaining City will be in the long run playing this way (I know that sounds strange to say when we’ve just won 5-1, 3-0 and 4-0 in recent weeks, but the quality of the opposition was well below typical levels). We are probably seeing an approach that is the closest to Phil Parkinson since the legendary City boss chose to leave Valley Parade seven years ago. If results continue in this way, retaining the buy-in of the crowd won’t be a problem. But like all pragmatic-leaning managers, results become everything and set-backs can attract less patience.

The other, as yet to be answered question is how successful a low possession style can prove when up against good teams who will be happy to keep the ball and be well versed in hurting opposition from having so much control. Equally, if and when weaker teams turn up to Valley Parade and park the bus, can it be an approach that allows City to break them down?

For now, Alexander has got some momentum and the next stage must surely be to truly bring back the feelgood factor to Valley Parade. It has been a difficult season, with the supporter mood a mixture of disappointment, frustration and anger. The high point was probably the Wrexham game, where a fantastic crowd backed the team who continued their good form.

On so many occasions last season, there was a real buzz on Bradford City matchdays. Even if performances weren’t wholly convincing, it was a campaign full of memorable moments that made you glad to be there. A real contrast to this season so far.

If Alexander can build on the promising performances of the last few weeks, he can truly bring back the excited mood to Valley Parade – and who knows where that might yet take us this season.

Categories: Opinion, Uncategorized

Tags: BCAFC