Bradford City ownership convinced new management team is way forward

Former Huddersfield Town and Scunthorpe United midfielder Collins, 32, who was on the club’s coaching staff as their under-18’s coach, was the surprise choice to be head coach with City finally reaching a decision after interviewing over ten candidates for the role of succeeding Simon Grayson, who left at the end of the season.

Defending the time it took to make the decision, Rahic added: “Six weeks ago, Greg was not very well unfortunately and it was really tough to think about recruitment and who could help me. I was on my own and had no manager and assistant manager and Greg was not well.

“From the beginning, Michael and Martin have helped me out on the recruitment and we started to build more and more of a relationship and I have known them two years now and we discussed about style and players and we had more and more common agreement.

“Happily, Greg is getting better and fitter and after some many interviews, we believe that the best team is in the house. This takes a little bit of time as you have to be very fair to the potential applicants and coaches who wanted to be the Bradford City head coach. We felt this was the best decision.”

Acknowledging that supporters will be surprised by the announcement, Rahic added: “Yes, because until Saturday, he (Collins) was not on the bets. I think the important thing for Stefan (Rupp) and me was to have the right feeling for a decision which can work long term or mid-term.

“It took a bit of time and a couple of weeks thinking about who can be the right person and coaching team. We had a lot of interviews and I spoke with a lot of chairmen and owners because they have much more experience than Stefan and I in English football.

“If you want to play a certain style of football and create a DNA for the club and then you think this is the right coaching team and person, just be brave enough to do it.

“We are brave enough to do it as we are convinced by Michael, Martin and Greg as a team who are fully committed to Bradford City.”

Determined to make the most of the opportunity and explaining how the shock chance to become the club’s new head coach arose, Collins, who has signed a three-year deal, said: “This morning with the announcement, my phone went a little bit crazy, but that is to be expected and I knew it was going to come.

“We had an open discussion with Edin and he is very good with his staff in being very open and honest. He put it to us and we had a conversation and he said he had done a lot of due diligence about various people and ourselves and he felt that there was a real opportunity to put something together to take the club forward and asked what our thoughts were.

“There was no pressure and saying: ‘this is what is happening, you are all jumping into these roles.’ He gave us plenty of time to sit down between us.”