I can't see Omar defending any better than Whitehead in that channel but if we got shut of all the players you think are he might be the only option.

Whitehead is in the top 4 Bulls players for meters, tackles, try assists, tackle busts, carries, clean breaks but let's pillory him anyway.

Straight swap with Leeds for Ian Kirke?

Whitehead's attacking game is good. There's nobody knocking that. Defensively he's got some problems. We'll lose some attacking threat without him that's for sure but defensively I don't see us being hurt that much.

Compared to another young player like Liam Farrell, Whitehead is some way behind.

Thankfully Ian Kirke has just signed a new deal at Leeds.

Give yourself a pat on the back for that witty comeback. Brilliant work. No, really.




Ah! Nothing quite tells the story quite like statistics. Where does he stand on the table of penalties conceded/missed tackles for example?

Not to mention lengthy bans for biting people.



I don't see him as being too much of a loss, and, for once, looking on here I don't think I am in the minority.

I blame Ken Davy and Huddersfield for this, you couldn't make it up.

Also I remember Bradford fans ranting what a great player Whitehead is, he hands in a transfer request and all of a sudden he is Michael Worrincy in disguise.

Won't be long before Bateman gets the same treatment when he pulls his Wire shirt on

FICKLE!!!!

There is no point in having a player who does not want to play for the club no matter how good he is (or thinks he is). It`s sad but life goes on. I wonder how much his attitude has rubbed off and disrupted other players. Like others have said he appears to have been tapped up. The club now needs to hold its nerve and try to negotiate a deal like it did for Paul Newlove (obviously on a lesser scale).

Exactly. Because the stats will be skewed as he is the preferred cover at centre when one of our backs is injured.

He is a 2nd rower.
What we need to know is how many missed tackles he has when he is up against forwards in the middle of the park.
And how many missed tackles he has when he is pushed out to centre , mid-game, and is up against a top quality centre.

Still too many, but stats don't tell the whole story.

How many people have been "ranting" about how great a player he is then?

Agree with this.

If one of the clubs can't pay cash and needs rid of a couple of players to make space under their cap - we may be in a stronger position. We have plenty of cover in the 2nd row, but if we could get our hands on a couple of forwards, who want to make a name for themselves, then that could work out.

Would be nice if we could get Evans/Blythe permanently but we would not be in a stronger position in the short term.

Whitehead signed a deal (or at least agreed it) under the Hood regime. So, all this about signing a long term contract and then jumping is a bit false really.

In the real world most of us are on 1-3 month’s notice and would gladly leave our current employer in the poo if a better offer was elsewhere – more so if we’d been head hunted regardless of how long we may have been in an organisation.

Whitehead is in his mid-twenties (?) and is likely to have only 6-7 years to maximise his income. He’s not played in a major final, is very unlikely to do so any time soon with the Bulls and at the end of his career, what will he be able to say? I stayed at Bradford for 10-12 years……Other players from the past were slightly different, in terms that they had won things with us and just wanted a new challenge (or at least they could say that without stating the money card – I’m pretty sure one, if not all of Pryce, Fielden and Peacock will have received more money when moving on regardless of what has been said in the past in books and interviews).

The lad would probably have had offers to jump ship when the vultures were circling last year, so give the lad some credit when he could have done a Koppy and gone for nothing. Personally I think although the timing isn’t brilliant, he has at least been upfront and honest about it and gone through the right channels – he’s not bad mouthed the club, has spoken with his agent and the coaching staff and it is they who have made the decision not to have him available for selection. If I’d been Franny, given our lack of numbers – I may have stated that IF Whitehead stays professional, trains hard and warrants selection, he will be considered for the team. To have him not training is a bit silly, but not being close to the squad, hopefully Franny has taken the right decision and it won’t impact the rest of the team.

From a personal point of view, I believe that if Whitehead wants to play for England, win trophies, realise his potential etc, he will need to leave Bradford to a play for a better club and be in different surroundings. It’s quite clear that we’re not going to be challenging for honours any time soon and other coaches may be able to iron out the errors and tackling deficiencies in his game.

There have been times when he’s looked as though he may push on and become an England player. He’s not going to do that if he’s not happy and has become stagnant.

There are two ways to look at it as I see it.

1. Moan like hell about him and give him grief and don’t actually make much of a difference.
2. Sell him to anyone who will have him and get as good a deal as possible for the club.

It is clear that we are spending under the salary cap and if whoever we sell him to (for example Warrington for ease of this argument) need to move other players from their cap for the rest of the year, we have plenty of space for the rest of the season to accommodate them.

We could end up in a situation where Whitehead goes to Wire, we receive Blythe / Evans permanently and obtain the services of a couple of fringe players, or potentially a “first teamer” out of contract at the end of the year at Wire who they are planning to release for the rest of this season.

One thing to remember is that there is no prize money for finishing 9th down in the table. If the club have banked on finishing in the top 8 for budgeting purposes (and we all think we’re sailing close to the wind money wise), then we may need to speculate to accumulate….to ensure a top 8 finish and a share of prize money.

At the moment we are short on quality and bodies – any deal that increases either is only going to be beneficial to the club.

Who would you sign to replace him?

Who said we need to replace him? We have adequate cover at second row. If we were going to lose anyone from any position then 2nd row is where it would be.

One plays behind the most dominant front row in the league and a week or two back one played behind Evans, Fairbank, Langley and Scruton. You're comparing apples with oranges.

Enough said.

It seems a strange time from Whitehead's pov, less than a year after signing a long term contract. I guess it puts the value of contracts into perspective.

To say he wants to join a top four club, he's not exactly been in 'top four club' form recently. That said, he has been outstanding[certainly on attackin the recent past and is one of those I'd hoped the club could 'hang its hat on' in the short term future - at least he plays in a position in which we're hardly short of bodies, and if we get some transfer fee, we may be able to put it to a prop, where we have a definite need. Not sure which of the top four clubs is going to look at Elliott and say, "he's better than what we've got", though....nor which club would have a gap on the cap and be willing to spend it on the hope that Elliott grows into the player who fulfils their hopes.

My overreaching feeling though is disappointment that a Bradford born player would leave like this, though conversely I can understand how he might feel.

Whoops.

TBF Whitehead's crap defence hasn't just been a feature of this season has it? He's been as poor when behind Hargreaves, Burgess, Scruton, Manoakafoa and Kopczak.

Farrell may be playing in a better side but his defensive stats are something to aspire to rather than make excuses for.

If he wants to go to a top four club, surely it can't be us (Salford)...We almost certainly won't be top 4 next year either!

But unless you are Mick Worrincy players, especially forwards, usually improve their defence & off loads. I would expect specialist one to one coaching every week to progress. I doubt he would have made progress to first grade down under with such poor technique.

Disappointing attitude. Especially for a Bradford lad. FC going the right thing as far as I am concerned.

Whitehead felt Kopczak had “done the dirty” on his team-mates when he left last year. Wonder what he thinks of this article now? www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... y____deed/

Whitehead felt Kopczak had “done the dirty” on his team-mates when he left last year. Wonder what he thinks of this article now? www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... y____deed/

This may be a blessing in disguise, only top 4 team who may be able to accommodate him would be wire, we could get Blythe and maybe another as part of a swap deal.

This may also be the spark the team need last year it was liquidation, which spurred us on and the kopout saga, this maybe the kick up the backside the team needs to prove to whitewash what he would miss out on, we have at least 4 players who can rotate through 2nd row plus blythe who im sure could manage it.

Lets not lose the faith guys.

I don't deny there's a lack of backroom staff at the Bulls. I think it's arguable that the player has a part to play as well as the staff in improvement. Whitehead's defence has flat lined for a few years. I'm not sure you can lay all that at the door of the successive coaching regimes, it may well have a part to play, but it's not the be all and end all. I agree he'd not make 1st grade in the NRL.

I don't think we are as strong in the 2nd row as some think

He's best off going to Salford. Their owner seems to think they will be a top 4 side next season, so why not move there? I very much doubt the likes of Wigan, Warrington and Huddersfield have the cap space, and I also question whether they would want Whitehead anyway.

Luckily enough for us, we have cover in the back-row, although a transfer request isn't ideal. We've heard all this talk about building over the next few years, in the aftermath of administration, and then midway through Cummins' first season in charge, one of our homegrown players hands in a transfer request.

In a way, I'm glad he signed a four year deal last year. He's added value to himself and in my opinion isn't worth £100,000 .