Pre-amble

In 2022/23, there’s a very fair argument to make that the Bantams’ top seven finish was the result of an over-performance from Harry Lewis and Andy Cook. It’s not that the rest of the squad was poor, but without their goalkeeper and striker they seemed to be a mid-table side.

Last summer, one of the recruitment challenges must surely have focused on the question of what City could do to reduce their over-dependence on two players. To prepare for the fact that Lewis and Cook were unlikely to repeat such heroics all over again.

Over two parts on WOAP this week, we’ll discuss whether they’ve succeeded on that, with the spotlight on the defence tomorrow. Today, we look at Andy Cook and City’s overall performance in front of goal.

The Cook dilemma

By Jason McKeown

What do you do when the superhero loses some of his powers and just becomes a regular hero? That’s the dilemma that Bradford City are facing this season, where Andy Cook once again leads the way as the club’s top scorer, but is nowhere near matching his heroics of last season.

With just short of 30% of the League Two campaign to go, Cook has netted 13 league goals from 33 appearances. Or 15 goals from 37 appearances in all competitions. It’s another good effort – it really is. He’s just about on track to net 20 goals. For perspective, only one Bradford City player has netted 20 league goals in a Bantams season since Dean Windass in 2005/06.

Of course, the problem for Cook and City is that the aforementioned other 20+ goal season came exactly a year ago, from exactly the same player. In all competitions, Cook netted a monumental 31 goals from 52 appearances in 2022/23. At this stage a year ago, Cook had 22 goals to his name. He would become the first Bradford City player in the club’s history to win the divisional golden boot award. A true superhero effort.

But Cook’s best-ever season in front of goal was also a big overachievement that he was always going to struggle to replicate. Especially at the age of 33, when most players naturally begin to decline. A three-year contract last May was a deserving reward for the way he carried City last season, but it’s potentially taken away some of Cook’s edge and intensity. No one should accuse him of taking it easy, but the threats to his future are no longer as visible – or at least, they’re now plying their trade at Stevenage.

What we’ve seen from Cook this season is a reversion to the mean

Graham Alexander recently pointed out that Cook is still delivering on his underlying numbers. Statistically, he’s performing well (this is something we’ll explore later). The difference is he’s meeting expectations, rather than vastly exceeding them.

This has presented City with a problem all season long. In September City hammered Newport County 4-1 and Cook got a hat trick, NTT20’s Ali Maxwell astutely summarised that eventually the Bantams are going to have to find a way to win games that doesn’t rely on Cook scoring.

Watching City play so well against Wycombe in the EFL Trophy but ultimately lose – with Cook not playing and the Bantams missing a hatful of chances without him – Maxwell’s observation remains deeply apt.

The big question is, are they heading in the right direction at least?

Before we answer that, let’s remind ourselves of the scale of the imbalance, focusing on league games only. In 2022/23, Cook netted 28 times in League Two – 45% of the Bantams’ entire 61-goal haul. City’s second top scorer? It was a tie between Scott Banks, Jamie Walker and Tyreik Wright – on four goals each. Richie Smallwood came next on three goals. There wasn’t a single other player who scored more than two league goals. And that was a big problem which ultimately cost City.

So what about now? Well, the good news is the spread is better, albeit not by much. Cook’s 13 league goals account for 31% of their overall goal output. Jamie Walker has a pleasing five league goals, Tyler Smith, Clarke Oduor and Alex Gilliead each have three League Two goals to their names.

Amazingly, City have only scored one goal fewer (41) than they had after 33 League Two games last season. During the run-in in 2022/23, they became more prolific from this point, going from 1.2 goals scored per game to 1.4. 19 goals scored in their final 13 games – Cook (who else?) bagging nine of them.

The big difference is that City were 11 points better off at this stage last season, and clearly they have a lot of work to do from here to finish in the play offs for the second year in a row. That means they need Cook to rediscover his superhero powers, or find a good spread of goals from elsewhere.

And that’s the reoccurring dilemma. One of the big ‘what if’ questions of this season is how the Bantams would have fared if Alex Pattison had stayed fit. In his first his three league games for City, Pattison scored two goals (he also netted in the League Cup at Accrington early doors). Soon after, Pattison got injured. He’s twice been rushed back into action and twice broken down almost straight away.

It’s similar for Walker, who has had a very good season and proven more productive in terms of goals and assists, but who has had injury problems. The different ways both Mark Hughes and Alexander have tried to get City operating this season have presented more goalscoring opportunities for the number 10 in the team – helping to address the over-reliance on Cook. But both managers have been ultimately hampered by significant injuries to their two best (arguably their two only) number 10s.

For Alexander post-Christmas, that was especially a problem. Both Walker and Pattison hobbled off injured at Doncaster in December, and without them City went eight league games without a win (Cook scored just one goal during this run and was even dropped for the Wimbledon game). The team have only picked up form recently with a move to 3-4-3 and the deployment of Oduor and Calum Kavanagh as wide forwards.

In the small sample size of the three straight league wins, Cook and Kavanagh both have two goals and Oduor one. It looks a more balanced formation that carries a greater goal threat than just Cook. The question is, will it be enough to give City a springboard to the top seven?

Alexander will also hope for more from the sidelines – and other parts of the team

We’re over a 1,000 words into this piece now and we’ve not yet mentioned the Bradford City player who’s outscored everyone this season. Jake Alan Young. 16 goals on loan at Swindon. A truly in-form player to bring back in January and pep up the Bantams…or maybe not. Injuries, transfer speculation, a promising glimpse of what he can do – and now a potentially season-ending injury. Young would really suit the 3-4-3 by playing as a wide forward. But he’s not going to get that chance for a while. Such a shame.

That leaves another returning January player – Tyreik Wright – looked upon to step up. The guy with four goals in half a season on loan in 2022/23. Like with Young, it’s been a disrupted time so far for Wright, with injury problems. But he’s now back and fit. Can he be the difference? We’re not quite sure, yet, if we’ve got the same Wright of last season, or what toll his disappointing spell at Plymouth has had on his confidence.

City need goals across the team, of course they do. Last year they famously went nearly the whole campaign without a defender scoring. This year, the backline have definitely contributed more. But with no goals from central midfielders Richie Smallwood and Kevin McDonald (but a prolific year for Alex Gilliead by his standards), there’s still room for improvement.

It all leaves City with a problem. Compared to last season, the goals are flowing in League Two with average goals a game notably up. But not for City, who even with a similar goal output to this stage last season are currently the fifth lowest scorers in the division. They need to be more potent, if they are to make up for the head start that others have on them – and turn a troubled season into one of success.

What’s Cook-ing?

Ultimately, you can’t avoid the fact Cook is absolutely massive to City’s chances. So let’s explore how well he actually is performing this season – and where it might be going less well for both the player and the club. To kick off, here’s a table of his time at City so far.

Starting with this season’s performance, he’s got 13 goals from an expected goals of 10.38. Expected goals (xG) measures the quality of Cook’s chances, and how many goals he would reasonably have been expected to score from them. In other words, Cook should have 10 goals so far this campaign, based on the quality of the chances created for him. So the fact he has netted 13 times shows he is slightly over-performing in front of goal.

When you look at the 2022/23 season, his xG over-performance was so stark – 28 goals, from an xG of 19.03, suggests he scored nine more goals than he should have. All in all, Cook consistently over-performs his xG year on year – showing what a good striker he really is.

This season, Cook’s mins per goal has increased from 127.1 to 194.9, and interestingly he’s averaging more shots on goal per game than last season. This all suggests that Cook is getting slightly better service this time around, but is not as clinical. I know this isn’t exactly a hot take – you don’t need numbers to explain what your own eyes saw in games like Sutton at home, to appreciate Cook is missing some sitters this time around.

Perhaps a more notable underlying Cook stat is one that shows he is being asked to play a different way. He’s averaging 8.5 aerial duals won a game, compared to 5.7 last season. It’s the most aerial duals that Cook’s averaged a game since 2021/22 – the Derek Adams/Hughes season widely accepted as his worst for the club.

So again, not exactly in rocket scientist revelation territory with this reading of the numbers, but City are evidently playing it more direct to Cook this season. And you can argue it’s not getting the best out of him, compared to the fewer amount of aerial duals he was involved in last season. Accuse Hughes of over-passing all you want. But it worked for Cook, and we shouldn’t forget that, especially on the occasions that Alexander has City playing direct and Andy unfairly gets the blame.

Finding the balance

Much was said that City played better against Wycombe recently, without Cook, because they weren’t launching it upfield to him. The obvious question is why do we knock it long when Cook does play this season? The numbers suggest he would perform much better if we stopped that approach. And the way City dominated League One Wycombe indicates the team would be more effective too.

Ultimately, we need Andy Cook to be the superhero. But more realistically, if he continues to play like the human being that he actually is, we need others to truly step up and share the burden. Bradford City are having an ordinary season hampered by hard luck stories in the treatment room. To genuinely change their trajectory, they have to start building on recent signs of promise – and produce something more extraordinary, more often, in front of goal.

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC