Bradford City’s Next Manager Has An Impossible Job – Mark Hughes’ Demise Was Inevitable
Danny Cowley and Dean Holden are among the names in the reckoning but if Hughes couldn’t get Bradford promoted, there is a good chance no one can
Mark Hughes admitted he was opening himself up to “reputational damage” when he took over at Bradford City 20 months ago.
On Wednesday night, with his club sitting in 18th in the basement division and Hughes having fallen short of the promotion target set for him last season, that arrived as he was dismissed from a job that was supposed to be his managerial salvation.
For Hughes, it is probably the end of his coaching career. There were moments at Bradford were it threatened to take off but the deliberate, slow build-up that he preferred from his team felt out of kilter in an era where even League Two teams press with ferocity.
Successive managers and new signings line up to trot out the line that the club is too big for the level it is playing at but it is 19 years since they were in the Championship.
This is their fifth successive campaign in the bottom tier and many supporters are now openly pondering what it is that holds them back given transfer and wage budgets consistently rank among the top four or five in the division.
Mistakes, rather than mismanagement, is the answer.
This is no Scunthorpe or Sheffield Wednesday, where ownership has either been ruinous or self-defeating. Stefan Rupp, the German millionaire who made his money selling helicopter seats and took over in 2013, is largely anonymous and wants the club to be self-sufficient.
But when required to make substantial contributions to keep the club’s finances on track – after a disastrous overspend in 2019 and during the Covid panic – he coughs up.
Rather it feels like City lack a clear identity, lurching in their last three managerial appointments from rookie managers Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars to League Two specialist Derek Adams before Hughes, the big name. None worked.
Still, there is no shortage of candidates interested this time around. A couple of experienced names i spoke to said they wouldn’t fancy it but that was more due to League Two being a graveyard for managers rather than the club itself, which has enough potential to attract interest.
Danny Cowley, formerly of Portsmouth, has said he’s keen, as is ex-Charlton boss Dean Holden. When the job was vacant in previous years Robbie Fowler and Craig Bellamy e-mailed their CVs to the club.
The Bantams would probably be advised to look at managers with experience at this level, given the uneasy relationship between Hughes’ coaching principles and what is needed to outlast the rest in the League Two promotion marathon. But where CEO Ryan Sparks, who is not afraid of making bold decisions, goes now remains anyone’s guess.
It probably doesn’t help that two rival candidates when Hughes got the job – Steve Evans and Richie Wellens – achieved promotion after being subsequently appointed by Stevenage and Leyton Orient.
Another who was keen on returning, Phil Parkinson, is now at Wrexham, who visit Valley Parade on October 21. Truly, the EFL managerial merry-go-round whirs at a fierce pace.
Wellens, who might have been joined by former Bradford boss Paul Jewell if he’d got the nod, may yet come back into City’s thinking this time around, i understands.
But whether dropping down from League One appeals or not is unclear.
Experienced midfielder Kevin McDonald has taken over on an interim basis and with the club biding their time over a full-time appointment, the Scot may yet earn a longer stab at it.
Sources who have worked with him before said he was a popular member of every dressing room he’d been in.
“Genuinely hilarious, the joker in the pack but also very intelligent and perceptive both on and off-the-field,” they said.
“Someone you just want to do really well.”
His audition begins against high-flying Swindon, whose top scorer Jake Young was loaned out by Bradford after falling out of favour with Hughes. He has nine goals already this term, just three shy of Bradford’s team total.
It is the sort of decision that made Hughes’ sad demise feel inevitable.
Leave a Reply