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’ve discussed whether they’ve succeeded on that. Yesterday, Jason took a look at the forward line and the extent to which the team is still reliant on Andy Cook.

Today, we’re looking at the other end of the pitch. We’ll take a look at how they’ve tried to compensate for the expected regression in their goalkeeping performance, and what the prospects look like for the rest of the season.

Overcoming the Lewis Dilemma

By Alex Scott

Before we consider where we are and where we may be going, let’s review how we got here. Last season, City made the play offs behind a top six defence and the top scorer in the division. A less generous (more realistic?) interpretation of that might be that despite having the best striker and one of the best keepers in the division, they still only managed to finish sixth.

Jason covered the attacking element yesterday, but on the defensive side it is much the same picture. City’s defence finished 12th last season in Expected Goals Conceded (ie the goals they could have expected to concede, given their performance). However, in reality, they were the 6th best defence in terms of the goals they actually conceded.

Much of this difference was down to Harry Lewis, who finished the season as the 3rd best keeper in terms of save percentage, and 4th in terms of goals prevented (ie the goals he saved against what he was expected to save). In short, he was a revelation, a close runner up behind Leyton Orient’s Lawrence Vigouroux as the best in the division last term. Given this was his first full professional season, it was a remarkably good performance from Lewis, and a remarkably good signing from Stephen Gent.

However, it appears that the underlying data suggested to the club’s decision makers that, in reality, they didn’t have a play off defence, they just had a keeper who made them look like one. So they took the decision to revamp their defensive structure to reduce the reliance on overperformance from the keeper, with the fair assumption that he’d regress in his performance from the dizzy heights of last season anyway.

Enter the big change in defensive structure this season, which has resulted in a move to three at the back from last season’s back four. The seeming intent being to set up more defensively, doing a better job restricting opposition chances. In addition, it would make the team stronger at defending set pieces, at which they also struggled. Combine these improvements with more goals from elsewhere in the team outside of Andy Cook (hence the signings of Alex Pattison, Clarke Oduor, Tyler Smith et al), and even if there were the expected regressions from Lewis and Cook, they’d still be alright.

Given they made the play offs last season, they came under a lot of criticism from fans (including from me, and from this website), for ripping everything up when on the surface it wasn’t obviously necessary. It seemed from the outside they only needed some marginal tweaks to kick on and seize promotion. There may still be some merit in that, but when you look into it, you can see their logic behind the plan.

The issue being, however, it hasn’t worked. Or, to be more specific, it didn’t work at the start of the season. 

Mark Hughes managed to make it 11 games into this campaign before the club panicked and got rid of him with the team languishing down in 18th. In those first eleven games, City did improve their overall defensive play from the previous season to become a top ten unit in terms of Expected Goals Conceded. But they didn’t improve by enough to compensate for the reduction in attacking threat brought about by sacrificing a forward for a defender. And Lewis’s bigger-than-expected regression in goal meant their overall relative defensive performance actually got worse than before, despite the extra defenders.

By the end Hughes had jettisoned the back three entirely, reverting to the previous season’s four at the back, to little effect. In the summer they bet everything on being an elite defence with some clinical goal scorers. The defence actually managed to get worse whilst the attack was unfit and ineffective. That is the story of how you get sacked at the start of October.

The club gambled that with a change in manager and a better defensive approach tactically, they could unlock what had eluded them in the first couple of months.

Hughes’s tenure in charge was succeeded by a protracted spell under Kevin McDonald as caretaker who retained the back four latterly preferred by Hughes. The underlying defensive performance actually improved to a very good but not great level, but over that period Lewis underperformed even further, and through McDonald’s spell, they collapsed into a midtable unit in goals conceded, vastly underperforming expectations.

This is the point at which Graham Alexander picked up the controls with a brief to try and salvage their seemingly doomed season. He maintained the existing back four structure for a game and a half, before ripping it up at half time in the Notts County away game, already four goals behind. He’s stuck with the back three ever since.

City’s returns have been inconsistent under Alexander, with some good runs being interspersed with some barren spells where points were very hard to come by. Throughout, however, they have been reliable in one element: The Defence.

Since Alexander took over, City have been essentially the best defence in the division. They’ve conceded 18 goals in 17 league games, and let’s not forget that the first six of those goals came in his first game and a half, playing four at the back.

Since the move to three at the back halfway through that second game, City have conceded 12 goals in 15 and a half games. That’s a pretty decent sample (a third of a full 46 game season), and if you extrapolate that performance over an entire season, they would not only become the best defence in the division by a stretch, they’d be the fourth best League Two defence over the past decade.

If Ryan Sparks and Stephen Gent’s thought process in sacking Hughes was to find a defensively-minded manager who could create an organised structure around three central defenders and play to the strengths of the squad, they have, quite clearly, been vindicated.

Alexander has managed to create the best defensive structure in the division with the same materials that he predecessor couldn’t. They’ve also improved from one of the worst teams at defending set pieces to one of the best, which at least part of which can be attributed to having more tall defenders on the pitch. The plan from the off season has, at least from a defensive perspective, come together.

There has been another change though, of course, midway through Alexander’s tenure: there has been a change in goals.

Despite arriving without much fanfare, outside of some positive reviews from former team mates, Sam Walker’s arrival has coincided with the City defence finally reaching its potential.

Given Walker was signed for nothing, to replace the (once) highly-touted Harry Lewis, this seemingly must to go down as a great piece of work by the club. They’ve made the club money (to invest in the very promising Calum Kavanagh, amongst others), and also improved at the position in the short term as they have done so.

Let’s not get this twisted, City’s defence have been nothing short of sensational since Walker arrived. It’s only seven games, but in those seven games, he has four clean sheets and has been a vast improvement on his predecessor, who’s continued to struggle at Carlisle. Simply put, no League Two keeper has performed as well as Walker, in this admittedly small sample, all season.

Although we could all see it with our eyes, it’s probably fair to now look back and suggest the impact of Lewis’s regression was understated. If he’d have even reached average levels of performance, they would have picked up several more points throughout the first third of the season, and that might have been enough to keep the show on the road.

If you wanted to be unkind, you could conclude that Harry Lewis went from making an average defence look very good last season to making a very good defence look average this season.

Since Sam Walker arrived however, they’ve gone from being a very good defence to become a great one. The overall defence has managed to do a great job restricting chances, but when called upon, Walker has also been elite. This is the upside of the vision they had in the summer.

There is no reason to think when persisting with the back three over the remainder of the season that City’s underlying defensive stats should drop off. Especially against a tame run in, with a potential new sense of confidence in possession.

The big question is whether Sam Walker can continue performing at the level he has so far. If he can, this will be a historically great defence. Even if he regresses slightly, City should still have one of the best defences in the division. This should take a lot of pressure off the forward three in finding the goals they will need.

As we’ve discussed this week, the run in is not overly intimidating. If they can find a way to be more confident in possession, and if they can find goals from elsewhere in the team beyond Andy Cook, and if they can maintain the defensive performance they’ve established over the last 15 games, they will have a genuine chance of contending for the play offs.

There are still lots of ifs, of course there are. The squad is still threadbare in places. One more big injury in addition to Jake Young, Alex Pattison and Jamie Walker will probably do for them. And they will have to show things they simply haven’t been able to do for sustained periods for two seasons, in winning with the ball, and getting goals from elsewhere. Lots of things still have to go their way.

But in a division as weak as this, in spite of the hole they’ve dug for themselves, the best defence in the division allied with a group of clinical forwards might just, maybe, give them a chance. 

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC