00:00It was the perfect start for Bradford City in League One this season, but attention quickly turns to game week number two.
00:08Following that opening day win against a strong League One outfit in Wickham Wanderers, Bradford City's manager Graham Alexander made clear that his side will grow in confidence and continue to grow in confidence with every win that they pick up.
00:22Certainly though, having that scalp on the opening day will do them no harm at all.
00:27They next go into a game against Northampton Town, hoping to make it 2-2, but of course they are away on this occasion.
00:35But the start for the season for Bradford could not have gone much better.
00:39Certainly they had the backing of their crowd at Valley Parade, which they won't have against Northampton.
00:44Yes, they'll have an away contingent, but not quite the same in terms of numbers and noise.
00:50But given the fact that they've had that opening day win, and the words made clear by Graham Alexander after the final whistle,
00:58you'd have to imagine that Bradford will go into this game with, as mentioned, an awful lot of confidence, and that will continue to grow with every good game that they have.
01:07Northampton, obviously, like Wickham, will be no pushovers whatsoever.
01:11But you'd have to give Bradford a really good chance of getting something from that game.
01:16Certainly they won't go into it as huge underdogs, despite the fact that, of course, they are one of the newly promoted sides in the division.
01:25So, ahead of the game, let's hear from Graham Alexander himself, who has been speaking to the media about the upcoming fixture in Northampton,
01:35and just what Bradford City can do in this game, and whether they are going into it with a lot of confidence,
01:40as he predicted that following the win against Wickham, they probably would do.
01:45Let's hear what he had to say.
01:48The first thought is, have we progressed in the last six weeks from bringing eight or nine new players into the group
01:56and, you know, to re-establish that connection and that sort of unity amongst 20-odd players needs to happen as quick as possible.
02:09And, listen, we're one game in, so there's going to be other challenges.
02:13It's like, how do we respond to, you know, negative moments and stuff like that.
02:18But, you know, to start off on that, on the good foot, in a positive fashion, I think the players have built, again,
02:28a little bit more trust with each other within what we do, how we work, but it's an ongoing process.
02:35We can never relax and say we're there.
02:39You know, I think it's important that we understand that.
02:42I think the players do.
02:42I think we've got a lot of intelligent players and experienced players and, you know, we know where we can improve.
02:49But, yeah, it's a good start for us.
02:52That ability to take on information, you mentioned it in your post-match on Saturday.
02:57Is that a reflection of the recruitment as well that you've done?
03:00You know, the character reference, the understanding of the player's persona and how they take on information.
03:07Was that a part of what you're looking when you recruit players?
03:10A little bit, but you can only do so much digging on that side of it.
03:14You know, it's probably the most difficult part.
03:18You know, you can see a player technically, you can see him tactically on the pitch.
03:23Fitness-wise, you can generally tell what a player can, what his capacity is for work.
03:29And the receiving information, the putting it into practice, the receiving of criticism maybe or a correction.
03:39Yeah.
03:39How do they take that?
03:40Do they take it personally or do they see it as an opportunity to improve and get better?
03:45All these little things, I think, are really important to us that, you know, we're a group without ego.
03:50So, we analyse things in front of each other.
03:56We talk about them in front of each other so we can all hold our hands up and admit a mistake and work on and not take it personally.
04:03I think it's really important for us.
04:05So, we like that from day one, as soon as a player joins us or from the start of pre-season.
04:11But you never know how a player is really going to react to it.
04:15And we always, if it's done in a group, we sometimes follow up with an individual conversation with that guy after.
04:22Well, for Bradford City, another win on the board would be invaluable.
04:27I think it was always certain that they needed to get the best start possible because they will face difficult periods throughout this season in League One.
04:34It's only, you know, it's natural that it will happen.
Be the first to comment