It’s been a weird Xmas this year, it just hasn’t felt like Christmas at all, I heard Slade just the once in the entirety of September, October, November and December, Public Christmas decorations, the lights in towns felt about as Christmassy as a Chicken Vindaloo at Karachi can ever achieve. TV was terrible, and to top it all off, a Monday has to be the worst day for Christmas day to fall on as shops close early the day before (Thank you Church of England), then as soon as the Pagan festivity, yes you read that right, and a lazy boxing day is done, the week is almost done. So rather than doing a normal review of a single game, let’s take a look at the relevance of the past week instead.
Ahhhh, it wasn’t all bad, there is still of course Bradford city
Well, if honest, the football results were horrible. Leeds managed to pick up 6 points, Town were unbeaten, Man U managed to scrape an equaliser at home to Burnley and City had a Christmas to forget, managing two losses over Xmas.
But is it bad though.
In my preview for the Wimbledon game I said I would be surprised if we would go on to win that game and I was favouring a Dons win rather than a Bantam one, I went on to call for a draw due to my bias towards my club and my heart couldn’t call out a loss, that was followed up by a major loss at home to Peterborough, and to put the cherry on the cake, rumours have surfaced that Charlie Wyke might be sold for £2m to a Championship club with Sunderland being mentioned. McCall should be sacked, get the Germans out, we need to spend £10m on a new squad of Championship quality players with Sheffield United’s Leon Clarke top of our list and get rid of all of the terrible players which happens to be all of them. Our season has ended and so let’s plan for 2018/19 offering Wayne Rooney a swan song season.
Hang on!!! There will be some City fans out there bemoaning those exact words on blogs especially after this past week, but let’s take a look at this. If you have followed City for a long time, you know if we always have a slip up, it is always against the teams at the bottom, even if we’re on a good strong run and let’s not forget to mention Peterborough are one of the strongest clubs at this level. We have just passed half way through the season and we are sat in 5th, 4 points off 7th and just 6 points off automatic promotion. We really are not in a bad position, McCall and the local tabloids will bemoan and point the finger at injuries, but that is part and parcel of the game, every single club has them, even to key players throughout the year, so what is exceptional about someone in the City dressing room unable to put their kit on? You can’t tell me Wigan and Shrewsbury have been injury free since August, or even Man City with their exceptional form.
Is it a good time to have a blip?
City are in a good position and it would only take a major mental cave in for us to finish outside the play offs. If we get a couple of bad results, let’s have it now rather than April or May. Let’s get the poor performances out of the way, the bad luck, the dire results out of the way now. Look back at our last promotion season, at one stage after the new year it all looked lost, but thanks to Exeter having such a huge crash that executives were jumping out of windows on Wall Street, City’s form had us creeping into that final play off spot and sealing promotion against the odds. I would sooner see McCall moaning in the T and A at this stage, some of our strongest opponents having a similar affair, just look at Charlton who are now outside of the play offs and then there’s Rotherham who had their poor results in the past couple of months but are coming back, if they manage to finish in the play offs, they will be strong. If our results bounce back, it will be at a time when form is paramount and not table standings. Give me 6th place with a form team than 3rd with a team who are scraping draws and losing leading into the play offs.
In the words of Freddy Mercury
Thank God it’s Christmas, yes it’s Christmas. We are half way through the season, there is a mental thing when a new year starts, it’s like a new start, even though we are half way through something, which is actually not going too badly at all. My articles will still inspire a certain journalist (I know you’re reading this and you have used some of my phrases word for word in your tabloid, and done articles mirroring mine a week or so later – thank you). We Bantams still have a lot to be merry about this Xmas, it may not be one to remember, but for me, 2017 was terrible, had the worst job in the world with the worst manager you could ever have the misfortune to share a room with, football has been poor and disappointing on the whole with us falling at the last hurdle without even a whimper, Town got to the Premiership, Leeds challenging for the Premiership and even when we have been winning, we have been poor. But 2018 is merely days away, a new year, new job, great manager, I’ve accepted the fact Town are actually a decent top flight side and Leeds United are still not quite good enough. We are starting the calendar year in a strong 5th place, talk of a player being sold for a couple of million which is a rare event at Valley Parade, so I for one can start the new year more positively and life isn’t all that bad being a Bantam, even if a single week is feeling a bit like a nonchalant forgettable dream.
2017/18 City Scorers
11 – Charlie Wyke
6 – Dominic Poleon
5 – Alex Jones, Romain Vincelot, Paul Taylor
3 – Patrick Omari, Nathaniel Knight-Percival, Matt Kilgallon
2 – Tyrell Robinson
1 – Shay McCartan, Jacob Hanson, Tony McMahon, Adam Thompson, Alex Gillead
1 – Own goals, Aristote Nsiala (Shrewsbury Town)
Upcoming fixtures
Oxford United (H) Sat 30th Dec
Fleetwood Town (A) Mon 1st Jan
Yeovil Town (A) Sat 6th Jan
Northampton Town (H) Sat 13th Jan
Bristol Rovers (A) Sat 20th Jan
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