Are Bradford City on course for an underwhelming promotion?

Despite considerable improvement upon last year, the Bantams haven’t lived up to the pre-season hype. But promotion is still a possibility, which is all that should matter.

Since being relegated into the division in 2019, Bradford City have regularly been touted among League Two’s pre-season promotion favourites. With the largest crowds and one of the biggest budgets, supporters and neutrals alike have maintained belief that it is only a matter of time before the Bantams are once again operating at a higher level. Yet until now, have been unable to muster even as much as a play-off place.

Of all the false dawns, 2021-22 was the most disappointing. Derek Adams, a promotion winner with Morecambe and Plymouth Argyle, became the latest coach to try his luck at Valley Parade, but poor results on the pitch and failure to develop a relationship with the fans led to his departure after just six months.

When even a League Two expert like Adams was unable to revitalise the club, City fans were beginning to question whether anybody could.

Persuading Mark Hughes to take the reins a week later attracted national headlines. Despite being out of work since 2018, the former Manchester United striker could boast a fifteen-year career as a Premier League boss and had never previously managed below the top flight.

With the promotion ship having long since set sail but without any serious threat of relegation, the remaining 15 fixtures provided Hughes with precious time to experiment tactically, ahead of a planned title charge in 2022-23. There was no significant improvement, but seventeen summer signings reignited hope among the fanbase that it would be fourth time lucky in Bradford’s quest for promotion.

The Bantams currently lie in sixth place, a solid bet for a play-off berth with an outside chance of automatic promotion. Even though Hughes has delivered progress during his year in charge, some supporters remain unconvinced. Complaints have been made about the team’s playing style and overreliance on Andy Cook. The 20 league goals the forward has registered so far make up 47% of the team’s total, by far the strongest individual contribution by any player in the league.

There have been issues with recruitment too. In this area, Hughes’s high profile has proved somewhat of a hindrance. His lack of any experience in the EFL means his contacts are largely irrelevant to his job at Bradford, because few of the Welshman’s old players have been willing to drop down to the fourth tier.

Of the summer arrivals, only goalkeeper Harry Lewis had previously been part of a Hughes squad, but never made a senior appearance for him at Southampton. The January signing of Matt Derbyshire, a 36-year-old striker whose previous work with Hughes came 15 years ago, is further testament to the manager’s inability to utilise his previous relationships to significantly improve his squad.

The money Hughes has been given to build his squad is another stick with which he is sometimes beaten. Richie Smallwood’s decision to join Bradford over League One Peterborough demonstrated the generous resources the Welshman has at his disposal, as did the addition of experienced midfielder Adam Clayton. Hughes was also able to benefit from the presence of a handful of proven League Two performers upon his arrival, such as top scorer Cook; albeit the forward has become even more prolific since the change of manager.  

This situation is hardly unique to the Bantams though; there are countless cases of money failing to reverse the fortunes of a big club on a downward spiral. It took Sunderland four years of heavy spending to finally escape from League One and Stoke City have been stuck in mid-table ever since arriving in the Championship with a star-studded squad in 2018.

If Bradford do eventually climb out of League Two this season, it will have cost the owners more money than they would have liked, but for a club with the fanbase and financial resources to sustain playing at a higher level, winning promotion is all that matters. How that promotion is achieved is of secondary importance.

On the pitch, draws with Walsall and Newport County have dampened the mood in West Yorkshire but a run of one defeat in the last ten fixtures suggests that the Bantams are trending in the right direction.

A quick study of League Two’s recent history shows that late season form is often enough to resurrect the faltering promotion ambitions of pre-season favourites. In 2020/21, much-fancied Bolton Wanderers sat in 17th at the halfway point and in the following campaign Bristol Rovers only entered the top seven for the first time in March, yet both clubs went on to win automatic promotion. Starting from a higher baseline, Bradford could feasibly match these achievements.  

However, the bigger challenge will come if City fall short of promotion. By historical standards, League Two’s class of 2023 is weak. Much of this is driven by the poor quality of the clubs that dropped into the division in the summer – the forty points required to gain survival in League One was the lowest total in the 21^st century. Alas, none of the relegated sides have been able to mount a serious promotion push during this campaign. Instead, the pace has been set by Leyton Orient, Stevenage and Carlisle, three teams that all looked in danger of dropping into non-league at various stages last season.

Next year will bring with it more obstacles. MK Dons and Oxford United are in danger of falling into League Two and both will be well-backed if they do. In the other direction, Notts County and Hollywood-owned Wrexham look set to finally return to the EFL and will have realistic ambitions to compete in the upper echelons from the off.

This season’s also-rans will be stronger too. Gillingham’s disastrous start quickly ruled them out of the play-off race, but their December takeover and eye-catching January signings will surely put them in contention next year. Colchester’s mid-season transfers and the impressive appointment of Ben Garner indicate they are finally aspiring for more than merely maintaining their EFL status, too.

This means that for Bradford and their promotion rivals, they will never get a better opportunity to taste success than in May 2023.

At first glance, a club of Bradford’s City’s size sitting in the play-offs of League Two would appear to represent underachievement. If the league standings were to be ordered by points gained per pound spent, the Bantams would undoubtedly be failing to keep pace with those at the top.

The significance of halting the half-decade cycle of steady decline cannot be underestimated, though. With Championship-sized support and a former Premier League manager in the dugout, the foundations are there to ensure that if they can sneak their way into League One in May, Bradford City could finally be able to wave goodbye to the fourth tier for good.

Fall on the wrong side of the fine margins however, and the thousands inside Valley Parade may well be left rueing missed opportunities in a much tougher division.