This Saturday sees the Bantams, and those who are travelling to support them, make the long and arduous 8 hour round trip down to Essex to face fellow League One outfit Southend United. Under the steady guidance of experienced manager Phil Brown the Shrimpers currently sit slap bang in mid-table after 17 games whilst we still sit second after an impressive start.
After our 4-0 demolition job of Rochdale last weekend we come into this difficult away clash full of confidence. In truth,we could have had more on Saturday. We played some fantastic, flowing, attacking football and held the ball for long periods of the match as we extended our current unbeaten streak in League One to 4 matches. Goals came from Billy Clarke, who made his 100th appearance for the club, TimotheeDieng, James Hanson and Mark Marshall. The manner of the result was yet another indicator that this squad under Stuart McCall look the real deal this season.
After the match Rochdale boss Keith Hill spoke to the press, claiming: "we've been beaten today by Bradford, so what, Bradford should've been promoted a long, long time ago." It can be said that most opposing managers that we’ve come up against so far this season have sung our praises and fully expect us to be challenging for the title come May.
As for squad news, nothing much has changed this week. Again Tony McMahon is struggling with his own fitness but other than that we are once again at full fitness for the tripdown south. We are also without any suspensions going into this weekend.
As mentioned previously, Southend sit in 12th position in League One after 17 matches. The Shrimpers are currently enjoying decent form of their own in their league campaign with a big 4-1 away win at Bury last time out. The Essex side also recently won 3-0 away at MK Dons highlighting the fact that Phil Brown’s squad has a lot of quality within it despite their average league position.
Southend certainly have players in their squad that can trouble our defense on Saturday afternoon with the likes of Stephen McLaughlin, Anthony Wordworth and Simon Cox among the goals so far this term. However the Essex side frequently concede goals, with 26 scored against them so far and a minus 4 goal difference to date, and once again we need the likes of Billy Clarke and James Hanson to step up and lead from the front.
Speaking before this weekend’s match, Southend’s former Premier League central defender Anton Ferdinand expressed his and the clubs desire to beat us this coming Saturday. Since February our opponents haven’t won back-to-back games. Ferdinand wants to break that streak this Saturday with the visit of the Bantams stating to media “if you don’t win back to back games then the win before doesn’t really count for me so that’s the aim this weekend,”
Interestingly enough, this week saw the release of the ‘Price of football’ BBC study. As always Bradford lead the way country wide in terms of having the cheapest season tickets available to supporters however surprisingly Saturday’s opponents Southend charge a whopping £395 for their cheapest season ticket. That’s staggering to me. With an average attendance at Roots Hall standing at just 6,602 this season I genuinely find it bewildering that a club at this level could charge fans that much money. We pay substantially less as fans of Bradford City and thus are part of an average crowd three times the size of that at Roots Hall.
Speaking in his pre-match conference this Thursday Stuart McCall spoke of his sides start to the season. “We’re delighted with the points we’ve got, 32 from 17 games. Give me another 32 points from the next 17 and I'll be happy.”