www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... bombshell/ On indefinite leave and will no longer train with the club.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... bombshell/ On indefinite leave and will no longer train with the club.

Maybe he wants to be more hated than kopout !

He might make himself look silly saying he wants to play at a top 4 club! I can't see any of the top 4 paying a large fee for him, and I can't see the club letting him go without one!
Salford might suit him anyway. The Manchester lifestyle is not to be sniffed at!

First big test of how new management handle adversity IMO. Losing whitehead is no doubt a big loss long term. Short term it's how we can turn it to our advantage that matters. His form hasn't been brilliant for a while with several posters wanting him dropping. If the level of clubs that he wants to go to are all at full cap could we engineer a deal that sees a player + cash coming the other way to facilitate a deal?. Could be a big help with our lack of size in forwards in the short term. Catalans have plenty of big forwards who could maybe feature in such a deal.

This is a very black day for the club.

He's upset at the lack of progress but what are the club to do under the circumstances on the back of last season's squad decimation and the 50% Sky money (although that should have no effect apparently)?

Feel genuinely sorry for Francis and Omar and I think a Bradford lad could be expected to behave a bit better than this.

I wonder whether any really top clubs would want him, even despite the lack of cap space.

For me he hasn't really developed over the last couple of years - in fact he's gone backwards IMO. Misses far too many tackles, in fact his tackling technique is poor, plus he tries impossible offloads that hardly ever come off. He's a good player, no doubt about that, but I wonder whether the Top 4 sides would look at him and think that he would actually improve them?

This stinks the same as the kopout transfer !
Wonder if Davey is waiting in the wings ?

Must have a club already lined up,why else do this mid season

Think it's very poor

Agreed clearly tapped up.

Stinks when you're on the receiving end of it but that's what you can do when you're a big and/or wealthy club.

Wonder if all this talk of wanting a top four team is being used to wangle a better deal at a bottom two club backed by a wealthy race horse owner?

Slightly OTT there.

Player wants to play for another side - hardly unheard of now is it?

Anyway, Salford promise big spending, we won't. Plus, Whitehead is a "billy big-time" who is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. Defensively useless and gives away too many penalties.

I assume that we will be adequately compensated.

Time to step up to the plate Mr Khan.

Must say, as he is in contract and we should get a good fee I am not too upset by this. His comments are interesting in that we aren't progressing. This is a club who c12m ago were days away from closure, have half the sky money of anyone else, currently sit in a play off place (just!) and haven't featured in the play offs for a number of years.

In fairness I think the club has made more progress in the last 9m than Whitehead has in the last 2 yrs. Would be an interesting question to ask Whitehead, bearing in mind situation last year, what he would class as progress early June

Losing a young, british, homegrown player who has previously had international call ups is nothing but an absolute disaster. Forget all this talk of his poor defence - something like that can be ironed out in training in a matter of weeks by a decent coach.
Now more than ever it is vital for clubs to produce and RETAIN their own junior talents. There is no point receiving a fee for Whitehead when the outside player pool is so devoid of quality.

I can see why FC and the club have taken the stance they have, but I honestly think we would have been better going down the Cas/Clark route and telling him to forget about leaving the club. He was contracted to the end of 2016 - who's to say what sort of position we as a club would be in at that time? He could well have had a change of heart by then. Now we will never know.
Instead we have folded at the first hint of unrest, our reputation for being a selling club goes on and on.

Second row is the one position we are blessed with plenty of cover in. And not just cover, but decent cover. The likes of Bateman, Olbison, Donaldson, Walker, Langley, Addy and Murphy ("on loan"icon_wink.gif can easily cover, especially considering Whitehead's loss of form in recent times.

If we get £100k for him, it'll be us laughing, not the club that buy him. If that money is used to strengthen an area of the team that needs it more than the back row, then we win again.

What is the point of keeping an unhappy player against his will?

And "absolute disaster?". Awful choice of words and totally OTT in any case.

TBH I don't see this as anything like the same scale as when we lost the likes of Fielden, Pryce, Peacock etc. Whitehead isn't in their league (and never will be IMO). We should be careful not to blow it out of proportion.

He's not progressed in recent seasons and has issues with his defence and ball security. I was only saying last night before I knew of the transfer request that he would probably benefit from a change of club, provided he went to a better side that could "carry" him a bit. However, that's not going to happen until the end of the season at least.

The bull about the club not progressing as he'd hoped is a bit much. He signed a big long term deal during the final months of the Hood regime and we've come through a lot since then. It sounds like his head has been turned. I'm disappointed he didn't stick it out for his mates until the end of the season as the squad need every hand on deck at the moment. Poor attitude.

Now at least Donaldson will get a game and the defence on Whitehead's side will improve!

What a silly boy - his head is too easily turned. Obviously he thinks a lot about himself......

He now has a real job on his hands, he'll be left in limbo for a while till he is sold and I wonder what state (physically) he'll end up in.....

its a big gamble you've taken Elliot, and either us fans will regret it or you will, time will tell.

I wonder if he is changing his name to Yellabelly from Whitehead?

An awful position for Bradford. It’s not as if he is an international class player who teams will be queuing up to buy forcing up the price. He is a good player, potentially one of Bradford’s best home grown talents, but has stagnated. It is telling that his deficiencies have not been ironed out &, if anything, got worse. Possibly a sign of the lack of back room support available to Bradford. Presumably this being on leave lark involves getting paid your contract but not playing bonuses? Lose, lose for Bradford unless they can quickly trade him in.

Salford bound and definately been tapped-up. If you get 80K it will be a good deal for you guys. He's nowt special.

Possibly, but he's had these deficiencies for years. I suspect it's not all down to lack of coaching but down to him a bit too. Hope he enjoys it at the Reds.

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).