Bradford City manager Stuart McCall trying to create Sheffield United-lite

It is surprising more teams have not tried to mimic the Blades’ innovative approach but their former player-coach Stuart McCall is nothing if not tactically brave.

Bradford’s manager wants his team to get the ball down, and with the Valley Parade pitch rejuvenated after no competitive football since February and the sun out, conditions were perfect for it when Colchester United came calling for the start of the League Cup campaign.

“Can we play?” McCall, stood six rows back in the stand, challenged his players more than once when the ball was in the hands of goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell. He wants to do it within the framework created by Wilder.

Bradford’s 3-1-4-2 formation is slightly different but it was noticeable how outside centre-backs Anthony O’Connor and Reece Staunton attacked like Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell, getting forward at times as if they were wingers. Rather than overloading wide as their South Yorkshire counterparts often do, wing-backs Dylan Mottley-Henry and Connor Wood were more often in the inside-forward channels.

It nearly worked.

In the 88th minute, 18-year-old Staunton got to the byline and put over a ball that demanded to be headed in. With experienced goalkeeper Dean Gerken jumping across his path, Clayton Donaldson put it wide and the game finished 0-0.

Donaldson made a positive impact as substitute but was on the wrong side of a marginal offside call minutes after coming on, setting up Lee Novak’s disallowed goal.

Ten minutes in, the latter had a shot saved and the follow-up cleared by Tom Eastman.

Gerken also denied Harry Pritchard.

Generally, though, goalmouth action was scarce, O’Donnell’s only save of note keeping Kwarme Poku out in the first half.

With a better final ball or finish, Bradford could be good to watch this season.

“When we started pre-season the lads said straight away, ‘You’re trying to be like Sheff United!’” smiled McCall.

“If we’re going to play with wing-backs and people are going to sit in – not that Colchester did – you’ve got to take that extra gamble and we’ve seen how successfully Sheffield United do it.

“It’s something we’ll certainly be encouraging here but we’ve got to be comfortable one-on-one at the back and I thought Paudie (O’Connor, the most central defender) was.”

“When I first came into men’s football I started at right-back and I enjoyed getting forward,” said Anthony O’Connor.

“Reece is comfortable on the ball so it plays into our hands a little bit.”

Perhaps the reason more teams have not taken the Wilder path is it requires a lot of training-ground work.

It might help Bradford to start without a crowd drowning out McCall yelling his players into position.

“Your outside centre-halves need to be able to take the ball and create extra men in midfield,” explained Anthony O’Connor. “As well as putting a lot of work in it’s just recognising on the pitch when you can go forward.

“There are going to be times when you’re feeling a bit tired and you think, ‘I’ll just stay back for this one,’ but the gaffer’s always on at us and always trying to find ways to get in behind.

“We knew Colchester’s full-backs would push up a little bit and there would be space in the channel.

“We probably over-obsessed about trying to do it but on the balance of things we just didn’t have that cutting edge going forward.”

McCall spoke of a “bravery about both sides.

“They went two for two and pushed their full-backs on high quickly against our wing-backs so we wanted to exploit down the sides of their two experienced centre-halves,” said McCall.

“We’ve got to play like that when we’re at home if we want to win games.

“We couldn’t be sitting in, we needed to try to put that extra man in there and create opportunities.”

McCall’s only frustration is that more of his players will not spend this evening watching the formation’s experts.

“I don’t think some of our lads even watch football,” he said. “In my day you’d go anywhere to watch a game of football. Now you can ask them about all the TV programmes but if you’re a student of the game you watch good players, you watch games like this (gesturing to Liverpool versus Leeds United on a television in the corner of the room) to try and learn things.

“I’m just not sure many of mine do.”

Bradford City: O’Donnell; A O’Connor, P O’Connor, Staunton; Watt; Mottley-Henry (Ismail 72), Cooke (Pritchard 77), Clarke, Wood; Guthrie (Donaldson 72), Novak. Substitutes: Longridge, Richards-Everton, Hornby, French.

Colchester United: Gerken; Welch-Hayes, Eastman, Smith, Brammall; Pell, Stevenson; Poku (Cowan-Hall 84), Chilvers (Marshall 90), Gambin (Senior 67); Brown. Substitutes: Sowumni, Scarlett, George, Tovide.

Referee: R Joyce (Teesside).