Bradford City manager Graham Alexander has insisted he wants strong competition throughout his squad as they make their return to League One, according to The Telegraph and Argus.
Alexander has now made seven summer signings.
Pennington Makes It Three
Of those seven signings, three have been centre-backs with the latest signing Matt Pennington putting pen to paper on a deal yesterday.
The former Blackpool man joins Curtis Tilt and Joe Wright as defensive signings and Alexander is pleased to have that competition for places.
“We want strong competition throughout the team.”
“I spoke to Matty a while ago and we had a really good discussion. We had to sort out other parts of the pitch first because we already had numbers where he plays.”
“But I looked at the squad and remembered some of the difficulties we had last season when we had a bit of an injury pile-up in that position.”
Alexander Wants To Avoid Injury Repeat
During their successful League Two promotion push, the Bantams had to contend with injuries to all three starting centre-backs in the same period.
Aden Baldwin, Neill Byrne and Ciaran Kelly were all unavailable, forcing a tactical rethink and a new formation as the squad lacked numbers to cover.
The manager is determined to avoid such an issue this season.
“You saw how much it affected our game because we had to change shape and everything. We just don’t want to be in that situation again.”
“He’s got a good track record. We look at his attributes and know he can fit into our back three no problem at all.”
“We just wanted to make sure if there’s a good player there, we want to sign him and the boy wants to come, then let’s get it done. We’re very excited about him.”
Another gruelling season awaits the Yorkshire side, with the manager building a squad to stand up to the rigours of Saturday-Tuesday league and cup football.
“We should be playing 50-55 games and maybe I’m getting my head round having an 18-man squad is an ideal that’s never going to happen.”
“It’s difficult to have that over a 10-month period but we’re going to pick up injuries and suspensions as you saw at the end of the season.”
“We just want to make sure we are as strong as we can be as often as possible and Matty will help us do that.”
Writer’s View
Competition is set to be fierce within the Bradford City squad and it will be up to Alexander to manage the expectations of players who are desperate to play.
The Bantams have acted early in the summer to build their squad, focusing on adding experience to the ranks and have made some positive moves in the market.
