Bradford City and Salford City slumps 'a lesson to all'

The visitors sit 13th with no realistic chance of promotion, while Salford have slid all the way down to 20th and are only just going to avoid relegation.

After the promise both clubs showed last year, few would have imagined such a drop-off for the pair over the next 12 months, but Bantams boss Graham Alexander said: “I think that’s the beauty of football.

“Whatever you do previously doesn’t count for much going forward, because you have to keep your standards, ambition and work ethic high.

“I’m not saying any of these were lacking here at Bradford City, because I don’t know how the approach was last summer in pre-season.

Bradford City's season started badly, as they lost with 10 men at Crawley, and it has not got much better since. (Image: Thomas Gadd.)

“But you have to earn everything you get in football, there’s nothing given to you.

“Everyone wants to strengthen each summer, so all the teams that didn’t get to the level they wanted last season all went out and tried to improve.

“I think the club tried to do that here as well, but for both us and Salford, it hasn’t turned out the way we wanted.

“That’s football and the same can happen the other way.

“Teams can struggle towards the bottom one year, then have a good summer, come back refreshed and motivated, and turn their next season into a successful one.

“For me, that’s a lesson for anybody here that thought they could rest on what they did before.

“That’s not the case, and you have to prove yourself every single day in this game.”

Having been taken over by members of Manchester United’s fabled class of ’92 such as Gary Neville and Paul Scholes a decade ago, Salford have enjoyed a meteoric rise through the divisions.

But that has stalled badly since they reached League Two in 2019, reaching the play-offs just once in five attempts.

Alexander was in charge of Salford from 2018 to 2020, so has the first-hand experience to discuss the club in depth.

He said: “The higher you go up through the levels, the tougher it becomes.

“There are other examples of clubs, not just Salford, where you’ve seen this happen.

“Chris Lucketti and I were in charge when we got them promoted into the Football League but the first season was difficult, even if we still got to the EFL Trophy final.

“I know the ambition at that club, and I don’t think that’ll ever change, because of the people who own it.

“They’re serial winners from their playing career and want to take that attitude into their ownership model too.

“If you look at what the club have done over the last three or four years, the owners won’t be happy, but if you look at it over the last eight or nine years, the trajectory has been superb.

“We have the same ambitions here at Bradford City, to go and rise through the divisions and compete at a level where we feel the club deserves to be, but you have to earn it.

There have been some magical moments for City this season where they have competed with the best, like when Andy Cook scored a late winner at Wrexham, but those instances have been few and far between. (Image: Thomas Gadd.)

“I don’t think anyone in football wants to be in the bottom half of tables or not be at the top end competing for promotions.

“I don’t think it’s just us and Salford that are in that boat of having ambitions and not reaching them.

“But for now, and the future, I’ll just focus on us at Bradford City.”

Alexander and his players had to stay focused in midweek, when their game at Barrow was called off due to a waterlogged pitch, the second time the fixture has been postponed this season.

It meant having to quickly switch the mindset to preparations for Salford early, as well as having to get out of Tuesday game mode.

Asked how staff and players dealt with the sudden schedule change, Alexander said: “We try to prepare ourselves in a way, mentally as well as with how we work in training, where we can be adaptable.

“You have to be ready for change and ready for something happening out of the ordinary.

“We’re trying to create a team that does that, with the resilience and emotional focus to accept that something like that has happened and look at how they can move forward.

“The game got called off last minute, but it was a case of how we could look at making that Tuesday and Wednesday count.

“We were able to have an 11 v 11 game, so everyone could play, and play in the way we want to play.

Unlike the original postponement of the Barrow away game in February about an hour before kick off, City had plenty of notice for Tuesday's call off. (Image: Thomas Gadd.)

“We wouldn’t have had the potential to play that 11 v 11 game if we’d been facing Barrow, because we’d have had a split squad and some people not training.

“It worked out, I wouldn’t say for our benefit, but we made it a positive.

“I think that’s important in everything we do, because there are always going to be difficult moments or things that come along you don’t expect.

“But if you’re strong enough and mentally fluid enough to adapt and make things work, then it’s not a problem.”

That Barrow game has now been pencilled in for Tuesday, April 23, the final midweek of the season, but what happens if the game is postponed for a third time?

Alexander said: “We’re not in control of it, as a club or me as a manager, obviously, but I’ve seen clubs in the past play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, so if it comes to something like that, so be it.

“I would hope, by that Tuesday it’s now scheduled for, the game will be played, and if it means we have to play on a pitch that’s borderline unplayable, we’ll just have to grind through it, like we used to back in the day.”