Most liked posts in thread: Simon Grayson - worst Bradford City manager record ever

Your team as just concerned five goals and capitulated beyond belief.
What do you do?
You give your players a right bollocking over the airwaves and through the local press.
Tonight the players didn't let anyone down,they tried to win a football match but just came up short of victory.
After witnessing the debacle at Blackpool up close I'd say well done to both Grayson and his players tonight, keep it up next Tuesday.

 

The "off field" issues didn't end when Stuart walked out though. The fans were/are disgruntled. The owner-fan relations are at a low point. The owners cant turn back time and invest in January. Plus whatever else may or may not have occurred. So these off-field issues are not solved with one man being sacked and replaced.

If Grayson had come in with a full pre-season, opportunity to sign players and a none soured atmosphere then we could judge his tenure more harshly. The reality is he walked into a club with a lack of quality/depth in their first team squad, disgruntled fans/chairmen and a run of pretty poor form. He's had to try to turn around an oil tanker with a canoe paddle and I for one give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

gonna be parkyball mk2 from the shrews game, which tbf i think suits the club better. he also has the air of a man that can't stand bullshit so hopefully he'll put edin in his place, lets not forget this is a man who's worked for the oystons and ken bates in the past so will be experienced in dealing with nutcase chairmen.

 

Last night we showed a bit of bottle but it also highlighted how woefully poor our recruitment has been. We don't have a "match winner". We don't have players who we can genuinely say they "create chances".

Thats not Graysons fault....it goes back to before the season started AND further back.

 

I think it's unfair to judge Grayson so harshly. Most of us gave McCall the benefit of the doubt due to not being backed in the January transfer window. The team needs strengthening and our poor run of form spiralled out of control. We lack quality and depth up top.

Whatever you feel about Stuart being sacked Grayson has come into a very tough job and without being able to sign players he's trying to turn around the dreadful form whilst the chairmen and fans are having a minor crisis. It's not an easy job and I don't think many managers would have fancied taking this job by our current standard.

 

Thursday nights match was the best for a long long time,if he can get a tune out of that lot then lets give him a chance with his own players and cut the negativity,its already claimed one forum

 

I get the idea of the dna. It has worked well at Barcelona over the years...

Problem for me, is that it requires a huge investment all through the club to make that work. Coaches bought into it, right from grass roots level through to the first team, as well as a significant amount of time for it to feed through. I don't think we are a big enough club to do this. We can't afford to employ enough full-time coaches, of the right quality, and we are also in competition with numerous other clubs for young players.

You are obviously close to youth football, and you have seen how the big clubs work. One of the kids I teach looks to have lots of potential (at the age of 8). He had Man City, Man United and Liverpool all wanting him, trips to the ground and meeting Zlatan Ibrahimovic etc. We can't compete with that. Man City can afford to spend millions on youth football, as they will likely recoup that money through sheer economies of scale.

I think the idea of bringing in players who haven't made the grade at higher league clubs is very sensible. In theory, they will have had access to better coaching than we can ever provide. But, this needs to be balanced with making sure we have enough experienced players who can play football competitively.

The appointment of Grayson, to me, shows that the owners are being pragmatic and responding to events on the pitch, as well a perhaps a realisation of the scale of the investment required off the field to make the club viable above league one.

 

He’s had 8 matches, not been able to sign a player, the players without confidence and the owners invisible.
Give him a chance!

 

I believe once Stuart was sacked knowing Grayson's track record with regards promotions from league one they persuade him and have given him the job (on far more money than McCall was on) hoping he could come in and save their bacon the club getting the "new manager bounce" and he could stop the rot and save our season.
They made it clear that they wanted to sign him on a longer term contract which sounded/looked good at the time not sure as many City fans are as convinced with what they've seen even accepting they are not Grayson's players I personally expected better even when he has obviously been setting his team up not to lose which made sense in trying to stop our slide down the league.
If Grayson takes the job longer term I believe he would only have done so on guarantees he will have a decent transfer budget to give him a chance of being successful (he has his reputation to keep) and no transfer committee nonsense, him and his backroom team will be on more than the last manager/backroom staff IMO, and the owners have told us the pitch will be sorted, if Stefan is not prepared to invest any more we know Edin can't so it is a situation of Grayson not being around, Stefan coming up to the ockey or Edin convinces new backers to come on board and purchase Stefan's share holding.

 

Give him a chance ffs, these are not his players.
Stuart had lost 8 on the trot previously.
Parky had a run of 22 games without a win during his tenure.
I’m not saying that Grayson is the answer, but he deserves to be given time to get his own players in. What I feel would help is him signing a contract, even if it’s only a 12 month one.

 

I thought we were giving our opinions about Grayson, urban?
I was offering suggestions as to who I thought could have been worse managers, by the way I also know how to use google and stats don't necessarily mean everything. I find your initial comment obnoxious and arrogant and think the list of names are good examples of the crappest managers we've had. I also discount whetherall because he took over when the club was in absolute turmoil And was unable to sign players or make any reasonable decisions

 

I’d like too see SG in the job next season . Am not impressed with what we have seen so far but honestly Carnt See any one doing a better job under the circumstances . He has the best CV for what we require and think once given time and hopefully a kitty he’ll give us a really good solid team next season . I don’t see anyone out there with better credentials who would take the job .

 

Your right it’s a rumour which came from a retired journalist who worked For a well respected regional publication not the T&A. Who keeps in touch with sports journalists from where this rumour originated

 

I think it may be a matter of not wanting to provide the investment rather than can't

 

I don't doubt he may be away trying to get new backers to buy Stefan out, so in trying to persuad these new backers where does he start,
Phil Parkinson would not work to our original model so walked and signed for Bolton Wanderers one of our fellow competitors, we wavered the 300,000 compensation package Phil had in his contract as we didn't want the reasons why he turned our offer down, and many Bradford City fans fell for it.
Stuart McCall was recommended by James Mason and Julian Rhodes which looked a good option to keep the fans quite after losing the manager who had help to give the club 5/6 years of improvement, but we had every faith in our model
Great first season under McCall unfortunately finishing with a defeat at Wembley.
Stefan and myself though it would be a great idea to let the big wage earners leave and replace them with lower league players with potential (although Millwall had done the opposite and kept the majority of there previous play off team and added a bit more quality what do the know about the German model), and tried to implement the German way, salary based on 50% wage and 50% bonuses, it didn't go down well so we compromised and McCall got the best out of these new players getting us and keeping us in the top 6 for most of the present season, before the January window we said we would back him financially in the transfer window even though at that time we had hit a bad run of form injuries not helping the situation.
We soldiered on trying to get our priority targets but to no avail we could not get our targets on board so we went for plan B (although we didn't really have one) to pacify the fans that we're asking questions, we did manag to get some very experience players in (just what McCall asked for) which was not in line with our model but we needed to keep the fans sweet, a fan had the audacity to stand up at a fans forum and actually said our January recruitment was a shambles, to which Greg was a little annoyed and said there were unforeseen circumstances why the guys we targeted did not get signed.
We told the fans a deal for a young Chesterfield strikers was nearly all done and dusted until Chesterfield pulled the deal just as the lad and his girl friend were tucking into a pizza (nothing spared to impress the lad) his favourite topping too, we were all gutted when Chesterfield couldn't get their target signed and pulled the deal, which they had every right to do as the deal was based on Chesterfield getting a replacement which they didn't, but it was really not our fault that we left it until the last day or so to up the offer for the lad, devious bastards these English clubs.
Things didn't improve and reluctantly we had to part with McCall as we didn't believe he could turn this very poor run of form around, I personally pursued Simon Grayson and convinced him to be our next manager and offered him a 2/3 year contract, he didn't sound that impressed as he would only sign a temporary contract until May, but hay we were very much up to our necks in shit some fans were calling us nasty names and comparing us to Adolf Hitler.
Simon came in and soon realised this was a massive task as some fans seem to think the players have down tools because of an indecent where I thought Burnley were being unreasonably about the terms they were asking us Bradford City to pay for what I though was a player who was not fit to wear the Claret & Amber shirt, so he signed for a fellow play off competitor Shrewsbury.
Simon is still struggling to turn the situation around but I don't think it's a problem as these are not his players, but he reassures us he is a Championship manager and we were lucky to get his services even for the four months he actually here.
So at the present time things around the club are pretty toxic McCall to stir things up accepted Sky's offer to summarise on the games against Blackburn away and Shrewsbury at Valley Parade which I thought at the time would not add to the atmosphere at Valley Parade on the night, to my surprise the team were up for the contest and although the 8/9,000 in attendance (usually 18/19,000) got right behind the team from them emerging from the players tunnel and gave the team every bit of vocal encouragement possible, but I believe it still could have been a health and safety issue IMO.
Anyway now you have the background of our very successful time at Valley Parade I just need you to stump up the cash to buy Stefan out, I can see with Grayson on board (I think he'll sign a longer contract) and it's looking like the fans are backing us again we almost have 9,000 signed up, your investment is very safe in my hands, by the way did I tell you I have coaching badges didn't I.

 

Exactly. We keep getting told the budget relies on season tickets, but the way it's going it looks as if the budget will be cut again. And for me there's no way we can afford a smaller budget than this season. We need external investment.

 

I agree with most of that, but my opinion has been formed by the short term contract Grayson demanded and the one the board agreed to. I believe they acted through both nievity and desperation. I think it was their belief that results would immediately improve and therefore the off field problems would be negated as a result. And yes, if Grayson had started "turning the ship around" perhaps they would have been proved right. But you yourself, and countless other City fans could see this was never going to happen so why couldn't they?