Former Barnsley man at Bradford City emerges as contender for Rochdale job

Bradford City youth coach Gary Jones has emerged as leading contender for the vacant Rochdale job. The League Two strugglers are in the hunt for a new manager for next season following their decision to part company with Jim Bentley and his assistant Nick Chadwick earlier this week following their poor run of form.

They are currently bottom of the Football League and risk slipping into non-league for the first time in their history. Their defender Jim McNulty has been placed in interim charge until the end of the campaign.

Jones, 45, is now the 3/1 favourite for the Rochdale job on BetVictor. McNulty is also found at 3/1, followed by Graham Alexander, Nigel Adkins and Keith Hill at 8/1 and Brian Barry-Murphy, Chris Beech, David Artell and Clint Hill at 10/1.

The Birkenhead-born man had two seperate spells at Spotland as a player and went on to make 343 appearances for the North West outfit in all competitions, chipping in with 51 goals and 28 assists. He also had spells at Bradford, Swansea City, Southport, Notts County, Altrincham and Barnsley.

Jones spent three years at Oakwell from 2001 to 2004 and played 56 times for the Yorkshire club all together, scoring twice. He hung up his boots in 2017 and joined Bradford as an academy coach in August last year.