The 2022/23 Width of a Post Player of the Season

Width of a Post regular writers Jason McKeown, Tim Penfold, Alex Scott, Adam Raj and Gareth Walker have voted for their top five players this season. The results have been totted up – and we can now reveal our top five Bradford City players for 2022/23.

In 5th place…Sam Stubbs

By Alex Scott

Sam Stubbs joined City in January from Exeter and immediately became – arguably – the signing of the season, save for Harry Lewis. Of all the many players brought into the club in the Mark Hughes era, the central defender has separated himself from most as clearly an elite League Two player.

Improving upon what was already a strength of the team in central defence, Stubbs arrived and almost immediately established himself as the lead central defender displacing first Romoney Crichlow, and then latterly Matty Platt.

Despite the strong partnership between Crichlow and Platt during the first half of the season, there was little controversy following Stubbs’s almost immediate elevation into the starting eleven given his strong performances.

His arrival coincided with a clear upturn in form for City, who immediately won five of six, keeping four clean sheets in the process. This followed a run of two wins in nine over Christmas and January.

The sample size is noisy, but if you break down City’s points per game with Stubbs and without, they essentially improved from the equivalent of the 8th best team in League Two to the 4th best team. In short, Stubbs’s arrival saw City improve from a pretty good side into a very good side.

There are similar, if less pronounced, improvements associated with Liam Ridehalgh and Adam Clayton also; however, the eye test would suggest only one player of the three could potentially have a causal responsibility, and that would be the impressive Stubbs.

That eye test was backed up statistically too, with Stubbs immediately establishing himself amongst the leading defenders in League Two.

What’s more, when you look at the more detailed rankings, he’s probably the best ‘all rounder’ amongst his peers in the League Two elite, ranking highly in the air, in his positioning and with the ball at his feet.

He’s also by a couple of years the youngest of this elite group, the only other players younger than him in the top 20 rated central defenders being teammate Crichlow (18th) and Northampton’s Sam Sherring (20th).

This year isn’t a flash in the pan either. If you look at the same analysis for last year, Stubbs also compares well from his half season with Exeter. He is undeniably an elite defender at this level.

Last season’s performance is also relevant here to note one of his closer comparators in former City man Paudie O’Connor. Through the last two years, he’s proven to be a very similar, if marginally better and younger version, of O’Connor. Stubbs was less good with the ball at his feet, though ‘Pass Success Rate’ is as much a reflection on system than player – though is the best proxy I could find.

After leaving City, O’Connor easily made the step up to League One finishing 15th in the equivalent central defender rankings this season from his 44 appearances at the heart of midtable Lincoln’s defence.

Stubbs conversely never had the opportunity after his promotion with Exeter. After an injury marred start to his Exeter career, waiting almost a year for his first start, Stubbs was at the heart of their promotion winning run through the second half of last season. Unfortunately, the recurrence of a long-standing knee injury at the end of August this season signalled the end of his Exeter career.

Obviously disappointing for Stubbs, but this proved to Mark Hughes’s fortune, enabling him to make a January swoop for the defender and bring him to Valley Parade. Stubbs’s recovery from his injury enabled him to be an ever present from his first start in a City shirt onwards, the 3-2 win at Stevenage.

A former Everton youth player, Stubbs has made a huge impact at City in only a short amount of time, and was a key reason behind City’s upturn in form since January. He’s proven himself an elite player at this level, and is likely going to be able to make the step up the leagues if he can get the opportunity.

His injury woes which dogged his time at Exeter have not yet materialised in West Yorkshire, and if he can stay fit, City will have unearthed a diamond at the heart of their defence for next season and potentially beyond.

In 4th place…Scott Banks

By Tim Penfold

At the start of Bradford City’s season, strange as it now seems in hindsight, the squad seemed a little bit light on wide players. Jamie Walker’s injury meant that Harry Chapman had to shift in to number 10, while Emmanuel Osadebe was injured – as a result, we ended up with Lee Angol playing wide for a couple of games. City needed reinforcements, and they initially came in the form of a loanee from Crystal Palace – Scott Banks.

He showed some early flashes of promise, looking dangerous cutting in from the right flank and grabbing a goal in his third league game against Hartlepool – a pound shop Arjen Robben, with one very dangerous and difficult-to-stop move. He also showed some set-piece skill, with a fine goal against Wimbledon, but his first half of the season was mostly defined by injuries. He went off against Wimbledon and only came back a month later, hammering in a fine goal against Sutton before getting injured again and seemingly disappearing.

The switch to a diamond midfield meant that there wasn’t really any place for him, and his season looked like it might fizzle out.

Banks returned to the side off the bench in the low point against Barrow, and looked brighter and more likely to create than the rest of the team – admittedly, a low bar – before a series of decent cameo roles off the bench. He sealed the late win against Colchester, then set up Cook’s equaliser against Hartlepool, and suddenly he was back in the team.

Further goals against Sutton and Rochdale followed, and he ended the season as the main creative and wide threat in the team – probably the third name on the team sheet after Cook and Lewis. He’d added more to his game, willing to go down the line as well as cut in, and even managed to score a couple with his right foot.

Banks was arguably City’s best performer across two legs against Carlisle, setting up Walker in the first leg and nearly scoring himself. At Brunton Park, he had the sort of game where nothing went right, but he showed courage and never vanished like some did. He kept trying things, and was rewarded when he laid the ball on a plate for Matt Derbyshire to get us back in the tie. And then, surprisingly, his season ended – sacrificed in favour of Matty Platt in a doomed attempt to hang on for penalties.

The frustrating thing about Banks’ season is that he didn’t have enough of one. He played just less than half of the available minutes, mostly due to a frustrating series of injuries, but also due to the tactical shift to the diamond which had no real role for him. He was, statistically, both an excellent creator (five assists, and in the top 15% for both assists and expected assists when adjusted for time on the pitch) and goal threat (again, within the top 15% of the division). His goal contributions came at a similar rate to Mark Marshall in 2016/17 – the outstanding recent City season for a winger.

In a 4-2-3-1, the best options for the three behind the striker available to City were Jamie Walker, Tyriek Wright and Banks. Due to injuries and Wright’s departure in January, the trio played no minutes together this season. The closest we came to replicating this was Walker, Chapman and Banks, which shone briefly in April but was stopped due to Chapman’s injury. In a season of “if onlys”, the biggest one is surely “if only we were consistently able to get our best creative players on to the pitch”.

Of these players, Banks made the most contribution. He did more than anyone except Wright, and played many more games than Wright did. He carried so much of our attacking threat for the late season, and will surely now deservedly move on to a higher level.

They say to never fall in love with a loan player, and the loss of the likes of Premier League bound Reece Burke and Josh Cullen still stings. The loss of Banks will also hurt, but it was good while it lasted.

In 3rd place…Brad Halliday

By Jason McKeown

Competence can be underrated quality. And when looking at Brad Halliday’s first season at Valley Parade, the dependability he’s offered has slightly gone under the radar.

How often, post match, did we supporters really talk about Halliday? He was not a headline-stealer, grabbing all the praise, such as the two players we’ve yet to talk about in our top five. He was not a problem player, underachieving and so causing fierce debates at different points of the season – like your Richie Smallwoods, Jamie Walkers and Harry Chapmans.

Win, lose or draw, there was Halliday. Doing his job. And doing it just fine. A seven out of 10 pretty much every week. He kept producing what was asked of him. Not causing anyone any undue concern. Competent.

“I thought Halliday was good today.” “Yeah agree.” That was how we fans generally spoke about Hallliday. Before moving on to talk about something else.

It is of course unfair on Halliday that his generally solid performances haven’t really attracted the praise they warrant. So let’s do something about that. Because Halliday is not just the deserved winner of ‘best of the rest’, when judging Bradford City player of the season outside the two you-know-whos. He’s proven the answer to a long-standing problem at Valley Parade, despite his recent track record giving cause for concern.

Let’s start with that enduring Bradford City problem. Right backs. They’ve really not been great over the last few years. Many have tried, many have failed. And that has certainly attracted plenty of supporter attention. Because if a good right back like Halliday is easy to take for granted, a bad one almost always sticks out. Regularly becoming the subject of post-match ire.

Let’s look at the players who have held the right back slot at Valley Parade over the last 11 seasons. We begin, of course, with the stupendous Stephen Darby. The mainstay of the right side of the Bantams defence for five superb years under Phil Parkinson, before he eventually lost his place to Tony McMahon and moved on. McMahon himself wasn’t bad either.

Between 2012 and 2017, right back just was not an issue in these parts.

After that, yikes. The table below shows those who came in with the defined role of Bradford City right back since 2012, and how long they lasted. Whereas Darby nearly notched up 200 league appearances, and McMahon made it to over a century in claret and amber, not one subsequent City right back has achieved 40 league starts. Until Halliday.

And that’s just the cold, hard facts about their City appearance records. When you recall what we saw with our own eyes of how most of these got on at Valley Parade, you shudder. There are exceptions in the list. Paul Caddis – the WOAP player of the season for the doomed 2018/19 campaign – was very good. Bryce Hosannah, Finn Cousin-Dawson and Luke Hendrie let no one down but had limitations. Elsewhere, there are some pretty dismal performers here.

Throw in a bunch of others who filled at right back over these years too – Thomas Isherwood, Dylan Mottley-Henry and Timothée Dieng spring to mind – and this has been a true problem spot for various City managers. Outside of Caddis, you could argue our most successful right back between 2017-2022 was an out-of-position Anthony O’Connor.

Halliday has changed that. At last, we have a competent right back. He’s come in and done just fine. He made 44 appearances for City in 2022/23, missing one game through suspension last September and another when he had a sickness bug in April. Other than that, he was always there. Mr Consistency. A goal on the final day of the season to seal City’s play off spot, and six assists over the campaign. That’s pretty decent.

The best City right back since McMahon? Yes, even if that’s not saying a lot.

And then we come onto Halliday’s record before City. The 27-year-old moved to West Yorkshire last summer having being out injured for nearly a year. A Fleetwood player for two seasons (2020-2022), in August 2021 Halliday played for the Cod Army in a League One defeat at Sheffield Wednesday, where he limped off with what was later diagnosed to be an anterior cruciate ligament knee injury (or what’s known as the dreaded ACL). In the past, it’s been a career-ending injury for many footballers. And even if you do return, will you ever be quite the same player?

So when City signed Halliday last summer, with the cloud of such injury problems, going on past form of City’s luck in these situations, we could gloomily predict problems ahead. For Halliday to play 4,272 minutes over the season is no mean feat against this backdrop. He really has proven to be a very good signing.

He’s not flashy. But that particular quality – competency to actually do your job – is huge when considering the recent past. Over 2022/23, Halliday solved the right back issue that has hindered the club for five years. And he’s done it so well, we’ve largely forgotten it was a problem in the first place.

In 2nd place…Harry Lewis

By Tim Penfold

Just over a year ago, Bradford City signed Harry Lewis from Southampton to a chorus of…well, not much.

A goalkeeper who had only played one full season of senior football, four years previously on loan at Dundee, and then spent years appearing in the semi-competitive environment of Under-23s football. When an opportunity had seemed to come up with an injury crisis at Southampton in late 2021, the Saints scrambled to sign an experienced keeper on a short-term contract rather than giving Lewis his chance – not the greatest endorsement.

So this was who our number one was going to be – someone seemingly overlooked by quite a lot of the footballing world. And, as it turned out, that was their mistake.

Lewis immediately established himself as an excellent keeper, particularly as a sweeper and shot-stopper. He was a key part in City’s “play out from the back” tactics, and seemingly made one point-saving save per game. There were also barely any errors, which for a relatively inexperienced keeper was remarkable. As we went into December, he seemed to be leading the race for player of the year.

His second half of the season hasn’t been quite as spectacular. Teams have started to work out his weaknesses, particularly on set pieces, and the occasional error has crept in. But he’s still been a magnificent shot-stopper. He gained us plenty of points, particularly away at fellow promotion contenders. His save with his head against Stockport, his David Seaman-esque claw away against Stevenage, and a brilliant performance against Northampton. It was Cook and Crichlow who got us the goals that day, but without Lewis Northampton would’ve been out of sight in the second half.

The underlying xG stats showed City as a relatively middling team this season, but they overperformed both going forward (mostly thanks to Andy Cook) and defensively. Depending on which model you look at, they “should” have conceded anywhere between five and ten more goals than they actually did, and a large part of that is down to Lewis. His save percentage of 73.7% is the sixth-best in the division, rising to fourth if you exclude players who didn’t play a full season, and he saved three penalties – the joint most in the league. He might not be the best keeper in the league, but he’s definitely in the conversation.

And finally, he’s also properly thrown himself into life as a Bantam. He was a deserved winner of the Community Champion award, and truly gets what it means to play for this club. He’s a very popular player, and only his status as a goalkeeper stops him from winning Alex Scott’s coveted “name on the back of the shirt” award. A truly excellent first season.

And the winner is…Andy Cook

By Alex Scott

You can finally get up off the edge of your seat. That’s right, Andy Cook is the winner of The Width of a Post Player of the Season 2022/23.

We try to accompany such things on the website with some nice, flowery prose to justify the award. Though with a conclusion as inevitable as this, the exercise does feel slightly redundant.

So rather than waste all our time by writing 1,000 words justifying why Andy Cook has been the best City player this season, I’m going to set myself a more ambitious goal, picking up on a thread left by Jason earlier in the season. I think Andy Cook might have just completed the most impressive attacking season in the history of Bradford City.

I know. Just hear me out. I come in peace; not to blaspheme. I am going to present my argument in three parts. Firstly, by just considering the overall numbers themselves in terms of the goals scored in their historical context. Then considering the team context in which those goals were scored, before finally a brief look at the external context and his peers.

First off then, how does Cook’s season stack up historically?

City’s list of great goal scorers spans back across its history all the way back to Frank O’Rourke leading the cup winning team in 1911/12 – still our second all-time league scorer. John Hallows and Jack Deakin just before the War, the run of McCole, Stokes, Layne and Green in the 60s. Joe Cooke, Bobby Campbell, Sean McCarthy, Dean Windass, Nahki Wells, the list goes on.

Yet what Andy Cook just did puts him right amongst the top of that list in terms of individually great scoring seasons in the league.

As best as I can make out, only David Layne in 1962 and Rodney Green in 1964 have scored more league goals in a season than Cook’s 28 this season.

Cook finished the season a way behind Layne’s record setting 61/62 season, but he is essentially right there on par with any other attacking season anyone has ever put together in a City shirt.

Indeed, again as best as I can make out, I think 2022/23 is the first time City have had an outright leading goalscorer in a division. Dean Windass’s 27 league goals in 2004-05 was joint top in League One alongside future teammate Stuart Elliott. But as per the unformatted table of unsourced evidence presented by the Recreational Sports Soccer Statistics Foundation, Andy Cook may be breaking new ground.

The next limb of my argument is grounded in the team context in which Cook was playing this season.

As we’ve said repeatedly on these pages over the season, there’s a decent amount of evidence that this City team overall wasn’t special. They just featured a couple of special players.

One in particular. Cook scored 28 league goals this season, which was almost one par with the entire rest of the squad combined. When you incorporate that into analysis, it does bolster Cook’s case. He was not in a vintage team, nor was he in a free-scoring team. Layne’s record 34 goals came as the figurehead of a team that racked up 94 in 1962/63.

The degree of difficulty isn’t necessarily as high as some of his competitors who performed at a higher level than the fourth tier. Both Bobby Campbell’s 1982/83 and Dean Windass’s 2004/05 seasons in middling League One-equivalent sides both will compare well but in the context of this flawed team he leading, 28 goals is a really remarkable effort.

Finally, let’s stack up Andy Cook’s season against his contemporary peers.

More sophisticated statistics have become available in recent years, and enable another angle to this story: his goal making for others. In addition to being clearly the top goal scorer this season, Cook was also 6th in the League Two assists rankings.

Over the past five seasons in the Football League, Cook’s 36 goal involvements (goals plus assists) has only been bettered or matched five times.

Of these peers with whom he is now rubbing shoulders, only Aleksandar Mitrovic has beaten Cook’s goal involvement per 90 minutes. And of those peers, no one has come close to Cook’s proportion of his entire team goals. Indeed, every other one of these comparable strikers’ seasons has led their team to promotion. Except for Cook.

Of anyone in the Football League with a comparable season over the past five years, Andy Cook has had the highest degree of difficulty leading this flawed City team. To do what he did in this context is – arguably – the most impressive personal season for a forward in the Football League over the past five years.

So, there we have it. It’s one of those statements that feels like it is coated in recency bias, so much so that it can’t really be true. And I am admittedly not really the right person to be making this case (for those with longer and better memories than me, please do jump in the comments with your views).

But if you consider the sheer volume of goals he’s scored, the context of the flawed team he was leading, and the era he was playing in, I think there is an arguable case for this being one of the most impressive attacking seasons anyone has ever had in a City shirt.

Undoubtedly Player of the Season, Cook now has the opportunity – having signed a new three-year contract – to enter the all-time pantheon of City scorers. His 48 goals in 106 appearances already has him up with the likes of Campbell and McCarthy in terms of goal rate. A couple more seasons and you’d expect he’d be right up there with Windass challenging the podium in our all-time scoring list.

Even if he doesn’t reach such heights, we’ll always have his epic 2022/23 season. Congratulations again to Andy Cook, The Width of a Post Player of the Season.

Past WOAP Player of the Season winners

2011/12: Luke Oliver

2012/13: Gary Jones

2013/14: Stephen Darby

2014/15: Rory McArdle

2015/16: Reece Burke

2016/17: Mark Marshall

2017/18: Matt Kilgallon

2018/19: Paul Caddis

2019/20: No award, as season curtailed

2020/21: Callum Cooke

2021/22: Paudie O’Connor