Bradford City season review as home form remains big issue

Saturday’s season-closing 4-1 victory over Newport was their 14th in 30 attempts since Alexander arrived in the dug-out in November.

That makes for an impressive win ratio of 47 per cent – compared with just 27 from the first 11 games that saw the club run out of patience with predecessor Mark Hughes.

It sounds a bit simplistic but stretch Alexander’s average of 1.63 points per game over the full League Two campaign and City would have accumulated 75 points – and be tucked safely in the play-offs.

READ MORE: All the facts and figures from Bradford City's season

The maths masks the reality of the last few months to some extent; City have endured more peaks and descents than an Alpine stage profile in the Tour de France.

The five-match winning charge to the line has noticeably lifted spirits on and off the field – how the season-tickets sales have picked up compared with the gloomy early forecasts.

Climbing off the canvas to grab 19 of the last 21 points available was some recovery for a team that had not raised a glove during that hugely damaging week and a half in March.

But was it the statement response that the performances and results suggest?

Alexander will be hoping that a platform has been laid for the improvements that need to be made over the summer.

Other factors, though, should come into play like the quality of opposition.

Beating Walsall from two down and scuppering their very realistic top-seven ambitions was a major feather in the cap.

But Newport and Barrow were bottom of the form table with Salford hardly doing much better. Gillingham’s play-off hopes were also on the wane.

For City, the pressure was pretty much off after leaving themselves so much to do.

Even on Saturday, when they kept their focus to brush aside the Exiles, the spotlight never shone that brightly on them once Crawley went in front.

Winning at Valley Parade when it matters

Would City have clocked up such a run if they were the ones being chased rather than a distant pursuer staying under the radar?

The decision-making as to who to keep and those to move on will surely take all that into account.

Being able to cope with and flourish in the Valley Parade goldfish bowl will always be the number one consideration for every player while the club continue to languish in League Two.

Harrogate were clapped off by their away fans after getting spanked 9-2 at Mansfield. City have left the field to boos when it’s been goalless at half-time.

That’s not a dig at a level of support that dwarfs anyone else in the fourth tier but evidence of the huge difference in demand that comes from attracting such impressive numbers week in, week out.

Other clubs are green with envy at City’s attendance figures; but maybe not so much at the pressure that will always bring.

City’s home results, as we seem to say every year, remain the biggest weakness.

City have won three at home in a row for first time since 2021 (Image: Thomas Gadd)

“I look back over Bradford’s home record over the past five seasons and the club has probably won more away games than home games over that time,” said Alexander a few weeks ago.

Victory at the weekend brought up a mini-milestone of three successive home wins – something that neither Hughes nor Derek Adams managed.

You need to go back to January and February 2021 under the dual control of Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars for a better run. Tellingly, that was achieved without any fans at all in the building during closed-doors football.

Once again, City failed to reach double figures in home wins; nine wins and eight draws representing a haul that was two points down on last season.

It’s the third time in four years they have finished on nine Valley Parade victories. The less said about the six in 2021/2022 the better.

Ironically, the last occasion the Bantams won the bulk of their home games was in the Covid-curtailed campaign in 2020. They had clocked up 11 wins from 18 when the plug was pulled by lockdown.

Thirty-three wins from 92 Valley Parade appearances since – that’s a mere one in three – underlines the size of the challenge that Alexander must conquer to get the club going the right way once again.

'Something to behold and befuddle fans'

The recent results are a start but let’s see how that goes come August and the promotion intensity is switched on from minute one.

Away form again excelled and only promoted Stockport and Mansfield picked up more points on the road. But until City can put home advantage into practice, they will always come up short.

Consistency is the manager’s watchword and the ability to learn to stay on the level without the extremes in team mood and performance that have dominated his reign to date.

Writing in the excellent City Gent fanzine, editor Mike Harrison summed up the emotional rollercoaster that we have all been strapped into.

“This violent veering from being brilliant for a few games to going all the way to the opposite end of the spectrum and being abjectly hopeless has been something to both behold and befuddle us, the long-suffering fans.”

That was penned before this late rally; another upturn to go with the six wins in a row, eight without a win, four wins in an unbeaten six and then those tortuous two weeks last month.

Brad Halliday, the stand-out player in the dressing room, spoke about learning to bounce straight back from a defeat like the teams at the top. In his words, too often a loss is followed by another and then one more.

Is that just down to ability or mental strength and character?

All that has been questioned at times in an underwhelming campaign.

A point short of the play-offs reads like a hard-luck story but, in truth, City had never been that close. Their ninth-placed finish was their highest placing of the season.

City let in five against Mansfield at Valley Parade in March (Image: Thomas Gadd)

They were already six points off the top seven – the same distance from the bottom two - when Hughes was shown the door at the start of October.

The Welshman seemed to have lost his mojo after the play-off agony last May. He did not appear the same figure coming back two months later.

Alexander alluded to “other issues” at one point which many took to mean a reference to Stefan Rupp’s distant ownership.

Fitness levels questioned from pre-season

I think it was possibly aimed more at the lack of intensity in pre-season that showed in the questionable fitness levels in the squad he inherited.

It’s safe to say, the players can expect a very different volume of work when they reconvene this summer.

Morecambe away was as dire as they come; a gloating Adams striding across the pitch to wave at the travelling support as galling a sight as Hughes sat motionless with his legs outstretched while his team imploded.

The away chorus of “you’re getting sacked in the morning” that followed defeat at second-from-bottom Tranmere was only out in its timing by a few hours. Hughes was gone the next day by tea-time.

It would be wrong not to mention Kevin McDonald’s efforts in filling the gap between permanent bosses.

An eyebrow-raising choice as caretaker, the big Scot united the dressing room with his calming demeanour and was as popular a figure with the fans as among his fellow players.

The win over an in-form Swindon and fightback to draw with Wrexham in front of the season’s only 20,000-plus crowd were notable achievements for his CV when he makes the inevitable step-up to management.

Alexander’s tenure began in “typical City fashion” by conceding inside 30 seconds against the same Barrow opponents who had hastened his departure from MK Dons four weeks earlier.

A half-time epiphany into changing formation after Notts County’s four-goal salvo in front of the Sky cameras saw City start to turn the tables and finally build some momentum.

The snakes and ladders had begun.

Eleven days of madness killed City hopes

There were obvious plusses on the playing front: the emergence of local lad made good Bobby Pointon, Sam Walker stepping in effortlessly to replace Carlisle-bound Harry Lewis in goal, Andy Cook still finding the net to reach 50 goals over two seasons.

City came so close to reaching Wembley in the club’s longest run in the EFL Trophy and losing in the way they did in the Wycombe semi-final hit hard.

But the league form continued to blow hot and cold.

The football season is a marathon – all 266 days of it for City and at times it’s felt a lot longer.

Playing permanent catch-up, those 11 days of March madness – three home horrors and that lunchtime let-down at Harrogate leading to a Good Friday protest against the club hierarchy outside Valley Parade - delivered a blow they could not come back from despite a worthy effort in the closing weeks.

Alexander has seen the very good and very ugly of City as he approaches six months in the job. Now it’s about finding a healthy middle ground and not dipping below that.

Rupp must also step up and fulfil the promises he has made about proper funding for a promotion challenge. Give the club the backing they deserve to really go for it.

Getting the full impact out of Valley Parade remains the key.