Bradford show resolve as Trueman and Doyle steady ship after Alexander exit

Bradford City's players were left needing reassurance at the start of this week after learning that Graham Alexander had stepped down as manager, leaving the League One leaders to regroup before travelling to face Reading at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

Alexander's exit, to take over at Preston, caught the club off guard. Bradford sat top of the table and had allowed themselves to dream of a first promotion back to the second tier in 23 years, making the timing of his departure particularly unwelcome.

Assistants Mark Trueman and Colin Doyle stepped up to take interim charge and moved quickly to address the dressing room, calling a squad meeting on the Monday after the news broke.

Trueman acknowledged that the sudden change had unsettled some of the group. "Some of the players were a little unsettled, didn't know what was going on or who was taking the team," he said, according to Guardian Football.

He credited the squad's response for keeping the club's promotion push on course despite the upheaval. "But the players have just got on with business, and that's the key. It shows the mentality of the team. This could quite easily derail them, but they've continued to do the right things," Trueman added.

With Bradford still occupying top spot in League One, the challenge for Trueman and Doyle has been to maintain the standards and results that put the club in that position before Alexander's exit, without the disruption derailing a promotion campaign that had generated genuine optimism among supporters.

How long the interim arrangement lasts, and who eventually takes permanent charge, remains to be settled by the Bradford hierarchy. For now, the immediate task for Trueman and Doyle is simply to keep the team performing at the level that had carried them to the summit of the division.