Alexander’s absence weighs heavy as Bradford try to keep promotion push on track

It was a bruising start to the week for Bradford City when news filtered through to the players that Graham Alexander had stepped down as manager. They were top of League One and his departure was a sudden and unexpected blow for a side that had started to let imaginations run wild about a return to the second tier for the first time in 23 years.

The coaches Mark Trueman and Colin Doyle took interim charge and called a meeting with the squad last Monday. “Some of the players were a little unsettled, didn’t know what was going on or who was taking the team,” Trueman said. “But the players have just got on with business and that’s the key. It shows the mentality of the team. This could quite easily derail them, but they’ve continued to do the right things.”

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If any caretaker can keep Bradford on track, it is Trueman, who has now stepped in temporarily five times since joining the club as an Under-18 coach six years ago. This time, though, is different. Previously, his job was to raise the team during low periods. Now the task is to maintain the upward trajectory that began the moment Alexander arrived in 2023.

Bradford were stuck in the bottom tier of the EFL and sitting in 16th when Alexander took over. They finished ninth in his first season, then third in his second to earn automatic promotion, followed by a stunning fourth-place finish back in League One, losing in the playoff semi-finals last May.

It has been a thrilling ride rarely enjoyed by Bradford fans. They twice reached the EFL Trophy semi-finals in successive seasons. At one stage, they won 10 consecutive home games, breaking a club record set in 1953. Last year they had the best home record of any side in Europe’s top five leagues. Alexander won 79 times in 158 games – the best win rate of any Bradford manager in charge for at least 65 games.

The chief executive, Ryan Sparks, said Alexander and the assistant manager Chris Lucketti, who has followed him to Preston, delivered “some of the most incredible moments in our recent history”.

They looked set to deliver more, with Bradford top of League One when the Preston opportunity came out of the blue. Alexander told the club he had ambitions to manage in the Championship, but you wonder if he might have achieved that with Bradford had he stayed. Perhaps he believed that two promotions in two years would risk them becoming relegation fodder in the Championship, whereas Preston presents a more stable platform. Ultimately, the lure of a club that he once captained – playing 400 games during an eight-year spell from 1999 to 2007 – in the city where his children were raised proved too strong.

On forums and social media, fans shared a mixture of sadness, anger and anxiety. Most believe Alexander has left the club stronger, but frustration is shared among a sizeable minority about the timing – less than two months into a season after a summer spent recruiting specifically for his aggressive, direct, high-pressing football. After Jake Beesley headed Bradford into a fourth-minute lead at Reading on Saturday, the 1,118 supporters who made the 400-mile round trip sang about being top of the league, but did not chant for their departed manager once.

Rapid developments in the space of a few weeks leave a huge hole. Bradford now find themselves in unfamiliar territory: it is the first time in 43 years they have lost a manager mid-season, and fans are nervous about the executives’ aptitude for finding a suitable replacement, given the shaky record before landing Alexander.

In the opposition dugout at Reading’s Select Car Leasing Stadium stood one of the favourites to take over. Before the match, Leam Richardson faced questions about whether he was interested. His response – that he would be in the Reading dugout for the match – neatly sidestepped the prospect that he might not be beyond this weekend, though he insisted he had not been contacted. Meanwhile Michael Duff, sacked by Wycombe last month, is also being heavily linked.

Nonetheless, Sparks and the head of football, David Sharpe, would have been watching closely from the directors’ box to see whether Reading showed signs of a style of football that would fit the framework Alexander built. Plenty makes Richardson a logical candidate. He previously worked with Sharpe, who was chair at Wigan when Richardson was manager, and he has also coached Callum Connolly, in the Bradford starting XI, and Nick Powell, who came on from the bench.

Others are in the frame, including the Plymouth manager Tom Cleverley, the former Manchester United midfielder – a Premier League winner in 2013 – who at 37 has quietly built his managerial reputation these past two years. Udoka Godwin-Malife’s second-half equaliser meant Plymouth moved above Bradford on goal difference. The next appointment is crucial. Getting Alexander so right makes getting it wrong so much more costly.