What do we need in January

We need a replacement or competition for Pattison with a similar style of play

 

If we bring in new players in January which players are dropping out of our 22 man squad? Nick Powell is an obvious one but who else?

 

Lapslie I'd say is another contender, just because he rarely plays and he might want to move on to play again. One of Kelly or Byrne too if we want CB improvements.

We can always bring in U21s with our 4 matchday loan gaps too if we want to go down that route.

 

Just heard Sparks on Radio Leeds, says recruitment is a top priority and we've hired another scout.

 

Neill Byrne for starters but obviously it depends which positions are brought in.

For me, defence to attack the players most in danger of being replaced would be Byrne/Leigh(depending on Pattisons fitness)Lapslie/Kavanagh

 

I was thinking that with Leigh. If they are determined he is a CM (I'm not so sure but I'm no coach), then surely he would be better going out on loan for 4/5 months and getting more time in the position in L2? He's still got another year on his contract too, but he isn't learning how to play CM by just pinging long balls down the channel.

Looking at his numbers, his passing accuracy of 68.3% puts him in the bottom 13% of all L1 players this season, but his successful long passes (38) puts him in the top 13% of L1 players for accurate long passes. To say he came as a striker, he's only had 4 touches in the opposition box. Defensively he's won and lost 43 duels each on the deck, aerial duels he's won 57% of them which to say he's 6'1 or 6'2 I'd have thought would be higher. He has 56 ball recoveries which is high (someone else tackles or there's a break in play and Leigh comes away with it), but he's been dribbled past 16 times in L1 this season, which puts him in the bottom 3.5% of L1 players for that stat....... so in summary, statistically he's a midfielder who can struggle to play short passes but has a long ball in him. His 50/50s are exactly that on the ground and near enough 50/50 in the air too which tells me with his frame he needs to get stuck in more and players are going past him more than nearly everyone in the league.

There's not a great amount on his L1 CV so far this season that you can stick to and say "this guy will be a good CM in the future", but it's a new role to him and he needs gametime. If we were 14th with no real expectations to challenge or go down you'd maybe say stuff it let's see him develop, but in this spot you really want dependants and to the eye the drop off between Metcalfe/Pattison and Leigh is noticeable.

 

BBC Sounds have put the full 1hr interview with Sparks online. Bradford City AFC - Ryan Sparks sit down interview - BBC Sounds

"The Bradford City CEO discusses budget, recruitment, training ground and much more."

 

Agree and always very expensive , it’s a sellers market in Jan at over inflated contracts to boot .

 

Sometimes you can look at stats and it doesn't really correlate with the influence of a player or what you're seeing on the pitch but reading through those stats and without mentioning who it was I reckon 95% of people would immediately say it was Leigh.

It was the same in the CF role though in that he just doesn't have the impact on games that a man of his size and ability should. It's a desire thing for me in that he'd rather float about looking pretty than be a real team player and do his share of the dirty work.

 

Yes just listened to his interview. You have to look for the nougats in his interviews. He will be asked a question and then perhaps 10 minutes later you get the answer.

He was asked about Rupp’s desire to build a training ground. After travailing the problems of getting the local council on board or “in the same room” and explaining that it is a good for the local area to have top sports clubs and the council problems with financing; then all our wonderful current facilities he says that we probably it won’t be any time soon!

 

Yeah i thought the same of it, 95% waffle and the bits of decent info are buried in there somewhere. If i remember the bits it was that the ground sale is kinda sat, boths sides know the situations and neither are pushing it.

New training ground conversations have pretty much stopped, focus is on improving WHG but WHG know if/when we need to move upward in the world they are happy for us to do so. Sounded like it's way down the priority list. Budget is set for Jan but depends on outgoings as we are at capacity..... cant remember much more other relevant bits to the fan that than in an hour long interview.

 

Just when I thought I’d turned a corner with this club this interview drove me crackers. Basically all Rupp has said around the ground, training ground etc not a priority and no updates. So basically it was when they were under pressure or needed to flog tickets.

 

Its bottom down my priorities too. We have a squad containing lots of L2 players and we’ve only had one transfer window to upgrade the squad. Let’s focus on strengthening the team before upgrading a training ground out of which we’re currently Sat second in L1, as cracks have appeared lately and we know the likes of Kelly, Byrne, Leigh, (possibly) Kavanagh and Powell can be improved upon.

 

I'm shocked that it's surprised you. There's not a hope in hell of any new training ground being built, it's all soundbites and a pipe dream from the club.

As far as buying the ground back, it just doesn't make financial sense unless Rupp has a sniff that a buyer is interested in the club and it would make the whole package more appealing (and profitable).

 

In a way I agree, but it’s the point it was used to influence our thinking at the time that irks me. He zero intention I and many others called this out. Good move bought him time and in that time they did the job. He wouldn’t even gives us the top budget in league 2 yet people expected he was going to hand over millions for the stadium or trainning facilities. He tried to pull the wool simple as.

 

I would add Tyriek Wright to that list Border, just doesn't do it for me at all, one decent game every blue moon isn't really enough for me.

 

Nothing wrong with that interview, it’s taken him time to get there , no whacky promises , no false dawns , complete honesty re the ground and WHG and the ownership model coming to fruition .

I DO remember the god awful times over the years , late 60’s and 70’s , bonus times at the moment for me.

 

We have to choose between the chicken and the egg , which comes first? Stability on the pitch wins for me .

 

Agreed.

Unrelated, I just noticed Lincoln have snook above us into second now too!

 

What eventually comes first…..

1) City building their next training ground
2) City and (back in Super League) Bulls moving into a groundshare (wherever that would be)?

I can’t see either happening in next ten years