Football Season Guide

There was a sense of defiance surrounding Bradford at the end of the previous season, with their boss Phil Parkinson vowing that his side would become stronger due to their play-off semi-final defeat to Millwall. However, it has since turned out that the second game of the clash with the Lions was Parkinson's last game at the helm, as he has been lured by Bolton, therefore leaving Bantams, whose fans and board considered him to be very much untouchable. His replacement is Stuart McCall, who has spent years with the club in different roles and has most recently been the caretaker manager of Rangers, and the big question regarding Bradford is whether or not their new boss will struggle to continue where his predecessor left off. When it comes to their summer transfer activity, they have not lost any key players, with Billy Knott, Ben Williams and Jamie Proctor being the most high-profile ones out of the players who have left. However, they also failed to secure loan extensions for players that did well for them last season, such as Reece Burke and Lee Evans, who spent the majority of the previous campaign at Valley Parade. Despite this, their squad seems like being slightly better than it was last time around, with the likes of Jordi Hiwula, Romain Vincelot, Nathanial Knight-Percival and Thimothee Dieng all being quality players at this level. Of course, it is always difficult to guess how a side that lost its long-serving manager will react, but the Bantams have a solid club infrastructure as well as the core of their last season's squad and will be dreaming of great things once more.