Today's T&A article Thursday 21/2/2019

I'm sure I could give examples of where managers have been allowed another season and have not delivered a quite resent on being Peter Jackson saved us from relegation the previous season, we know the rest Phil Parkinson took over, but I didn't say that did I, the comment was about how he'd performed this season and would the owner and CEO have faith in him to take us forward.
Regardless of where we finish I'm not sure I go along with that logic, his managerial ability should be judged of our last 37+ games under David Hopkin, that's the very nature of the job, managers are judged on their time at the club, and what they achieve or didn't achieve.
Very similar to the Phil Parkinson days, not sure it is, Parkinson was given a mandate to keep us in the Football League, so IMO that is as similar mandate Hopkin was given with regards keeping us in league one.

 

I don't think @fordy is any more a advocate of Bradford City doing well than the next Bradford City fan, his only problem is he wanted it yesterday .

 

As fans we don't know what's been happening behind the scenes but we do realise Hopkin was not happy with what he inherited and saw with regards what he considers the basics requirements from a player.
Once he took over he soon had the likes of Wright, Gibson, Jones, Reeves, Patrick Riley etc, weighed up and made his point by them not even making the match day squad, which I believe was the wrong decision, hindsight maybe but in the games he's managed us they could have been put to better use.
At times we were putting kids on the bench who were always going to struggle against old experienced hairy arsed pro's surely someone with the experience of Wright, Jones, Riley, Reeves could have been a better option, you have to ask couldn't Reeves situation been sorted by getting the PFA involved.

 

you do this with every manager fordy can you just stop! if you were the chairman wed have gone through more managers than Edin, and where has that got pretty much any fecking team that chops and changes managers constantly. fecking NON LEAGUE MATE THATS WHERE.

Hopkin isnt perfect but frankly wed need the bloody syrian white helmets for the size of this seasons rescue job so its pointless getting on his case. If we go down we need to stick with him and give the club a chance at some fecking stability as that historically is when we have enjoyed our greatest successes, and practically 99.99% of other teams too. Go be a chelsea fan fordy you'd love how many managers them lot get through!

 

YungNath - or should that be SonofPark?!

 

I'd argue its very difficult to use something more effectively that's useless to begin with.In all honesty Hopkin got a big tick with me for the fact in took him about 5 minutes to realise Josh Wright shouldnt be a footballer let alone a Bradford City player. I was at the oldham tinpot trophy game at VP and Wright should never kick a ball for us again after that game, seriously the worst player in terms of commitment, attitude and ability to wear the shirt ive ever seen.

 

please tell me if anything ive said isnt blindingly obvious already

 

I hear what you're saying with regards Wright I'm not sure if that is the only reason he left Wright out, at the time of Hopkin taking over there were strong rumours about Wright being Rahic's "stooge" everything that happened went back to Rahic.
Hopkin certainly made 4/5 of those players know they would not be featuring again, he's the man who will be held to account come the end of this season and if we are relegated I'm not sure if Id give him another season in charge.
But let's hope he gets the lads up for game today and we bring 3 points home with us that would be a very good start.

 

Wright a stooge? What kind of info would he be relaying back to Rahic lol

Yea we trained two hours, we practiced shooting, we practiced the Christmas formation? Whilst I wouldn’t put anything past that control freak, but I doubt Hopkin would give one tbh.

 

Hang on, whilst you have a point about Fordy berating every City manager he has known, that is not a reason to keep faith with someone clearly failing. With the players at Hopkin’s disposal and the players he was allowed to bring in (plus his changes to the back room staff), our ‘progress’ hasn’t been good enough.

I acknowledge he had no other option than to play a certain style of football, because of the recruitment before he arrived. But he has brought in some players and even then, didn’t manage to bring in players that can change the way we play.

But the biggest issue for me is his lack of changes in a game. So many teams come to play a style against us and don’t think twice about changing this if it isn’t working. Look at Barnsley last month. We were outplaying them, they made tactical changes and we made none. To sign players that can only play a certain style and then getting your players to play a long ball game is plain stupid. I think even Fordy could get more points than Hopkin, with the players available.

A team of small, attacking midfielders and number 10s and then playing long-ball is scandalous and you want him to stay if we get relegated? You may find you’re a minority here, because most see this cannot continue.

As for those chopping and changing ending up in non-league, shall we just ignore the likes of Watford and that white shite down the road?

 

So how can he change anything during games then? this has been the most unbalanced, one-dimensional squad Ive seen at city and you expect the guy to have some guardiola-esque tactical switch up planned when we cant even do plan A properly most of the fecking time. Hes said a few times he wants them to play to feet but they dont do it, either through lack of confidence or ability (both in my view). Im not saying hes not made mistakes but I genuinely did feel with a full close season and getting rid of those he didnt want (just get out of the club already wright) we'd have a chance to build something overtime, which historically is what has worked for US. I mentioned watford et al in a previous post so I havent ignored them except to point out that by and large they are the exception. Way more failures from this approach than there is success and if you want us to emulate L**DS in any way then your opinion deserves no respect regardless.

 

Quite simply, this is rubbish. Yes, the squad was one-dimensional, but he’s not innocent in that. He came out and said he wanted a targetman and a winger and January came and went with Clarke and Butterfield joining.

Secondly, he stumbled across a style of play he could use with the players he had. Despite this, he dropped this tactic to play long balls into the corners. He even dropped Doyle to play Miller in the role. Why did he stop playing Wood out wide? We don’t have natural wingers but he stopped even trying to use the width of the pitch.

Then you have the defence. He constantly criticised our inability to cut out the crosses from the wings or our ineffectiveness of defending those crosses. Yet, he never strengthened that area or dropped the players he had. He even signed a player on loan that he can’t even get into the squad.

Finally, I haven’t said I want to emulate Leeds. You said that sacking managers results in relegation to the Conference. I merely replied that this is not true and gave two examples of success. You even told @Fordy117 to go watch Chelsea and mentioned how many managers they have been through. And each time they sacked one, the next one came in and gave success before being replaced. I may be wrong, but I don’t think they are “fecking non league mate”...!

 

Edin fecked the club financially so we werent ever gonna be spending big bucks in Jan despite what one persons news article said Stefan maybe might have said once to his mate that we had a million to spend or whatever. Granted they were not what we really needed but if it was those two or nobody id take those two. I get the feeling he was banking on shifting riley and wright on but couldnt (thanks again edin), which has shagged our wiggle room alongside the essential commitment to keep Payne as without him we may as well have got 11 season ticket holders to play instead.

He absolutely did, but then teams worked out thats how we play and stopped us. because our squad is so unbalanced and one dimensional, once the only way we can play gets worked out the jobs fecked regardless. All our best players play through the middle and are generally slow weak midgets (calm down fordy) so why would you even want to stretch the pitch. Personally I think we missed Mellor in midfield as he gave us someone further forward who could actually head a ball in the general direction of a team mate if it did come long which took a bit of pressure off our backline.

Who would you play in place of caddis then, cos you're full backs should be the ones stopping crosses. chicksen is understandable but Wood whilst better going forward is an equally crap defender (although he has potential to improve). he did sign a full back in that woods guy but it looks like hes just a crock at the moment which is disappointing.

So whats the opposite of ignoring them then because what you said is shall we just ignore them then? yes, because theyre 2 clubs out of hundreds who've made that model work, look at us ffs. weve gone through 5 managers in about ten minutes and look where we are now. stability breeds success unless you're in the v fortunate minority who can make that model work. evidently we cant so weve got to pick a manager and stick with him. Going to the conference shouldnt be a concern if we get the right man in long term.

And also mate, dont say im talking rubbish cos thats just patronising. Disagree all you want but you dont have to get snarky about it.

 

Clarke & Butterfield is bizarre. It's more of the same.

We needed something different.

Some pace, a target man, a winger. We're going down because the last 4 Windows have been poor.

Sooner or later that catches up with you.

 

absolutely correct mate, cant keep doing poor transfer business and expecting to get away with it. Cant think of owt weve really got right since Edin got his hands on things.

 

Hopkin deemed two target men not good enough to improve the squad and another was sent out on loan elsewhere because the sellers didn’t want him coming to us. Dunno about other positions but clearly other factors involved. Plus heavy outlay on Payne.

 

Sorry, but if I think a point is rubbish, I will say so. And you blindly defending Hopkin with comments like “but how could he change it” is rubbish.

For whatever reason, he signed 4 players in the window, one of which can’t get into the squad because he’s our 6th loanee and another that gets more minutes as a forward than he does as the midfielder he was signed as. On top of that he allowed the owners to allegedly smash our wage budget on keeping Payne and then signed another player that can play the same role.

For whatever reason, Hopkin didn’t bring in players to change the way we play. Teams did work out how to play against us. We played narrow and through the middle. So commonsense says that if you cut off the supply through the middle, the job is half done.

You say we have missed Mellor. Agreed, but not just because of his height. He won tackles, helped to give us options out wide, instead of going straight through the middle and helped to shield the defence when we didn’t have the ball.

Similarly, when he got injured, Hopkin brought back Wood, who also gave us options. And as usual, Hopkin was so quick to bin him so he could play yet another central midfielder (like we weren’t congested enough in that area).

Hopkin had options. He chose not to use them and stuck with the same tactics even when failing. Even when chasing games, Miller was only brought on with minutes to go

 

I'm not blindly defending him when i really dont see what else he could do with that shower of shite. If I was blindly defending him I'd have said hes done everything perfect when that isnt the case at all. I just think the mistakes he has made havent exactly been the chief reasons as to why we're so shit.

He signed a full back, centre hallf, mid and a forward which isnt exactly as scattergun as you're trying to make out. if he signed nobody hed have been crucified even more. feck knows why he signed paudie O'Benchwarmer but why not I guess.

Yeah our best work has come from when we've had Mellor in midfield with caddis supporting iirc. As you say it was more than just his height.

Why do people think Wood is some sort of prodigy wonderkid, hes v talented but still a v rough diamond so is a poor example. hes worse at stopping crosses than chicksen and thats saying something. Bruenker gave us 'options' but that did sweet FA for us all season (as much as I loved panzers work rate and general attitude).

Hopkins options as you put it was essentially deciding which was the least smelly turd.Signing good players means nowt if they arent being signed with an overarching system in mind (Bury last season anyone?).

why do you think bringing miller on ten minutes earlier would affect anything whatsoever, he's shit as well. Why barnsley have bought him unless they had to quickly launder 50k is beyond me.

 

See what I mean? You don’t read what is said before you respond. Where have I suggested playing Wood instead of Chicksen? I said Hopkin tried him IN FRONT of Chicksen and it helped us become less congested in the middle of the park.

It was an option and despite getting some good reviews when playing there, Hopkin ditched him for yet another central playmaker.

You are blindly defending him by making out he had no options. He had a window to make changes and just signed like-for-like players. His choice. We did have players that would help us not have to play through the middle but chose not to use them. His choice.

Ok, I get that the hand he was dealt was poor, but he showed he could get a tune out of that squad. So why tinker and upset the dynamics? He had choices.... he just chose the wrong ones..!

 

I agree. We looked a much more balanced team with Wood playing in front of Chicksen and ball in front of Cadiis on the other side. Gives better protection to Chicksen too