By Jason McKeown

It’s very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the die is long cast on Bradford City’s season. And even more worrying, that Graham Alexander may already be doomed to fail in the Valley Parade hotseat.

After this turgid, dreadful, lamentable excuse for a football match, the Bantams remain well adrift of the promotion runners and offered meagre evidence they can bridge a growing gap. They have dug their hole into mid-table mediocrity and appear to be in too deep to climb off the canvas. 18 games left to play, and yet their League Two fate seems sealed.

And apart from the reasonable hope of winning the Football League Trophy, the diminishing levels of purpose in City’s season are now developing into concerning signs of apathy. At Valley Parade this evening, no attendance was announced. Shame, as we could have all done with a laugh. The eventual reported figure of 16,549 was nowhere near the thinbare level of actual attendees on a night of forecasted stormy weather. The disparity between official attendance and genuine people present a useful illustration of the growing distance between supporters and their club.

You can’t blame those who decided not to bother. Not just because they escaped enduring one of the lowest quality games of football Valley Parade has surely ever witnessed, but because ultimately we’ve seen this all before. The club is back where it was two years ago before Mark Hughes’ arrival injected life back into Bradford City. Back where it was in Covid times. Back where it was under Gary Bowyer. Or, to rewind even further, back where it was before Phil Parkinson.

We’ve seen these ‘worst of times’ on several occasions before. And it’s long gone past feeling like a novelty or a test of loyalty. It’s become incredibly boring.

Boring is also the best word to describe the football from Graham Alexander of late. It was a windy night, a dreadful pitch – no one rocked up expecting to see Bradford City tiki-taka. But were the conditions really enough of a reason for such a directionless and ugly approach from the home side? Necks began to ache from 90+ minutes of watching the ball launched aimlessly in the air, high and forward. No subtly, no finesse. It was incredibly dull and flat.

Salford weren’t much better. Like City they’re suffering an almighty post-play off semi final defeat hangover this season. The Ammies have been sailing much closer than City to the wind of the relegation trapdoor. You could see why.

Salford ended the night with a dismal 52% pass success rate. Although in comparison to City, that actually seemed half competent. The Bantams had a wretched 39% pass success rate. 312 passes attempted on the night, with just 122 successfully finding a team-mate. In the opening 45 minutes plus five minutes injury time, not one City reached double figures on successfully completed passes. This should really be a source of embarrassment to everyone involved.

It really was grim. Early doors suggested we might get a decent contest, as both sides traded goals. Salford certainly started better, following the Crawley Town blueprint of targeting the space in between Richie Smallwood and Alex Gilliead and the back three, and wide players counter-attacking into the large gaps left behind by Brad Halliday and Liam Ridehalgh.

On the left hand side, Conor McAleny and Junior Luamba enjoyed plenty of initial success. Luamba was especially a menace, and ran through City players at will, helping to set up the opening goal when his mazy dribble and shot was blocked by City home debutant Sam Walker, who could only palm the ball centrally, from where Ryan Watson was able to slam it into the back of the net.

In the Crawley Town match report we talked about City’s worrying habit of conceding in the first 15 minutes, which at the time was eight in the last 12 games. With Watson’s strike coming in the 14th minute here, we can now update that stat to City conceding in the opening quarter of an hour in nine of their last 14 games. It is a bad habit they must shift.

For six, what felt considerably long minutes, the sky threatened to cave in on City. With Matt Smith winning plenty of high balls and runners reading his flicks, Salford had their tails up and the crowd became restless. But then Jon Tomkinson won the ball in the middle of the defence, strode forward with purpose, played Gilliead through, who was curiously given too much space by a retreating visiting defence, and was able to hit a powerful low shot that bounced off the post. The loose ball came back at pace to Halliday, who did well to steer it into an unguarded net. 1-1, crisis averted.

But that was as good as it got.

The game quickly faded into nothingness. City had the ball at the back, they launched it long to Andy Cook, who was crowded out, and Salford tried to build something before they too lost the ball. Rinse and repeat. Back and forth. Back and forth. Nothing of note happening. Quality almost completely absent.

In the first half Cook touched the ball just nine times – and four of them were headers. The returning Tyreik Wright only had 15 touches over the same period. He must have looked around at the mute and sparse Valley Parade stands, and the endless long balls launched his way that he had little hope of winning, and wondered whether he has made a good decision coming back. A quiet debut for sure. But given the way City are operating, you wouldn’t bet on him being much busier in future games either.

In the second half there was some level of improvement from City. A bit more urgency. Signs of a press. It led to periods of pressure that stimulated interest, without the team ever offering up genuine conviction that a goal was coming. Substitute Harry Chapman – who briefly lifted the side before experiencing the same lack of involvement that Wright had suffered from – was played in by Clarke Oduor and forced a decent low save from Alex Cairns. For all Salford’s struggles they have the 10th best away record in League Two. This was not the easiest of opponents.

Alexander tried to bring some impetus from the bench. 13 minutes after Chapman’s introduction, Kevin McDonald and Tyler Smith were brought on for a strangely quiet Gilliead and for Tomkinson. It was a return to 4-4-2 that briefly offered a spark of momentum. But in truth, it slightly weakened City’s control of midfield and led to a couple of late Salford attacks.

Given how well they started, Salford’s ultimate lack of ambition in the second half was curious. They time wasted their way to a point that edges them closer to safety, and were clearly happy with simply not losing. Karl Robinson – who in October rejected an approach from Bradford City to talk about the then-managerial vacancy at Valley Parade, and who is said to have pipped Mark Hughes to the Salford post – has had plenty of nights of pain in this stadium as MK Dons boss. Like the old days, he probably expected a late City storm. But it never really came.

So it’s as you were for City. Six league games without a win is their worst run since the days of Derek Adams. The play offs are a daunting seven points away, and crucially City have played a game more than the sides currently occupying sixth and seventh. After 28 games in a season, any club’s trajectory is hard to change. And ultimately City are offering nothing to suggest theirs could alter dramatically enough to forge a different path.

All of which leaves the lingering, longer-term worry – that tonight’s crowd and woeful spectacle isn’t simply a new low point of a difficult season, but a frightening glimpse of the future.

Last season, there was so much hope. So much engagement from fans. So much buy in. It wasn’t perfect – and arguments we underachieved from a strong position are difficult to dispute – but there was something there. And now, after May’s play off heartache, it feels like everything has been tossed away. From us supporters, there just isn’t the same tolerance and acceptance anymore. So many people are saying to me they don’t want to renew their season ticket. The type of crowd here tonight could well become the norm next season, unless the club can start to offer hope.

And that’s where you worry the die is already cast on Alexander too. He’s only been manager for two months, so there should not be any calls for yet another change in the dugout. But we are yet to see any true visible foundations that suggest he can succeed where so many others ultimately failed. The football is now completely unrecognisable from the start of the season under Hughes, and it’s really tough to watch. Despite his assurances he is happy with the squad, Alexander needs a lot of different players over the summer for his methods to prove more successful. Until then, some team selections are curious.

We’ve flip-flopped on manager style once more, going in a completely different direction. And maybe it will work in time, but can any of us honestly say with conviction Alexander will get that time? And, as uncomfortable of a question as it is to consider, based on what we’re seeing so far, is this a plan we really want to follow through? Playing like this, it won’t take long for the crowd to turn.

It all reminds me of the classic Road Runner cartoons where Wile E Coyote’s doomed attempt to capture his nemesis sees him unknowingly run off the edge off a cliff. For a few moments he stands there on thin air, not realising there’s no ground beneath him. Then there’s the realisation. And then there’s the long and painful fall. Like many of his Bradford City managerial predecessors, Alexander might have already run off the cliff, and must somehow implement a successful approach before supporter patience snaps, and gravity takes hold.

I mean what is the long-term plan? Does Alexander really believe this basic, long ball style football can succeed in fulfilling City’s high ambitious aims of promotion? Does he think it will get the best out of the players he has? Tonight, Cook didn’t have a single shot on goal. He is getting absolutely no service, and so gives nothing for Wright/Oduor/Chapman or any creative player anything to link up with. Cook has just one league goal at Valley Parade all season – and that was a penalty (against Walsall in September). Last year’s League Two golden boot winner has not yet netted a single league goal from open play inside his own stadium. That is damning on City’s attacking prowess. And right now, it is on Alexander to fix.

But of course, the bigger questions lie above Alexander and to those in leadership positions at this football club. Over the last few days, the Telegraph & Argus has run exclusive interviews with Ryan Sparks, where apparently no question or topic was off the table. It’s fair to say that, as a series, it has so far left most supporters underwhelmed.

Looking at the disjointed team tonight, and reflecting on the overall squad Alexander is trying to refine, Sparks’ claim on recent recruitment “we’ve got more right than wrong” doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. Since Stephen Gent was appointed as head of recruitment in the summer of 2022, City have signed 38 players and counting. And for all that, they’ve gone from finishing 14th in the 2021/22 season to currently standing 16th.

Sparks also said he believes pre-season and the start to the campaign might ultimately have sealed our fate this season. In other words, that this is where the die was cast. And that’s probably true, but blaming the season’s failures solely on Hughes feels as though everyone else is avoiding accountability for their part.

And that’s arguably the biggest frustration from the – what optically to us supporters look stage-managed – interviews. Before and after the T&A series, it just really isn’t clear to us supporters who is ultimately responsible for transfers, who sets the overall strategy that sees us sack Hughes without a plan, and the reasons why we have hired a replacement that plays a completely different brand of football than the one the squad was largely recruited to carry out.

And if we’re not going to fully understand what’s gone wrong, and what lessons have been learned, as fans we are left with fading confidence in the leadership of this club. All of which leads to worryingly low attendances, worrying high levels of supporter anger – and a worrying feeling we’re operating without any plan that can give us belief we are ultimately going in the right direction.

Maybe Sparks has been failed by not getting the chance to really answer the questions people want asking, or maybe he just didn’t want to. But the rift between club and supporters is widening again, after Sparks deserved plenty of previous credit for bringing us all closer together. We’re a fanbase completely fed up of failing again and again and again. And as this troubled season heads towards a seemingly inevitable conclusion, we need real answers and genuine hope that the future can be so much brighter than the greyness we’re currently enduring.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2023/24, BCAFC, League Two, Salford City