Bradford City League Two Odds: Bantams 11/4 to win promotion

Bradford City finished like a train to just miss out on the League Two play-offs and the Yorkshire club are 11/4 to make no mistake this time round and win promotion.

Bradford 2024/25 League Two Odds

(Odds will display when markets are available)

When Bradford City, a Premier League club at the turn of the century, were relegated from League One in 2018/19 many presumed the West Yorkshire side wouldn't be in the basement for long.

That's not because they were deemed too big to fail, far from it. After all they had tasted League Two football a few seasons earlier following spells in administration.

But the common sense view on their most recent fall from grace was that Valley Parade wouldn't be in the bottom tier for long.

Five seasons and six managers later, however, here they are, still on the bottom rung of the Football League ladder and hoping that 2024/25 is the season when they start their upward journey.

At 12/1 to win the League Two title and 11/4 to be promoted they are certainly among the better fancied sides in their section.

But as they have themselves proved consistently over the past few years, reputations count for nothing in this division and current boss Graham Alexander, a man who has won lower-league promotion with both Fleetwood and Salford, knows they are going to have to earn the right to go up.

Alexander should at least be buoyed by how last season mapped out. When he arrived at the start of November following the sacking of Mark Hughes, the Bantams were 16th in the table and only two clubs had scored fewer goals.

Gradually and steadily he improved the club's fortunes and while it always looked as though the play-offs were a bridge too far, an inspired run-in which saw them take 19 points out of a possible 21 - beating promotion contenders Gillingham, Walsall and Barrow among others - left them in ninth, just a point outside the top seven.

If momentum counts for much then City should have plenty of it going into a new campaign and there's a signal of intent with their first three signings, Neill Byrne and Antoni Sarcevic from Stockport and defender Callum Johnson from Mansfield, all three promotion winners last season.

Alexander and new head of football operations David Sharpe will between them identify more players - and have apparently been promised a decent budget by chairman Stefan Rupp - and not make the same transfer-market errors of predecessor Hughes.

They will try their hardest to keep the promising Bobby Pointon and know they need more goals beyond the evergreen Andy Cook, his 17-goal tally last term nine more than anyone else could bag.

Rupp wrote an open letter to fans in March telling them the season hadn't been good enough. Those disgruntled fans didn't need telling.

All of them, Rupp, the board and supporters, will hope that a full summer will enable Alexander to identify a squad and a playing style which gets this sleeping giant roaring again.

Odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.