Bantams boss Graham Alexander reaches 500 games as a manager

It was an uncomfortable night in a testing period for the Bantams boss, who will be hoping that Jack Shepherd’s late leveller can help turn the corner again.

Injuries continue to cut deep into Alexander’s plans – to the extent that he is considering adding another free-agency figure to the squad to bolster a heavily-affected midfield area.

But so many games as a player and manager have taught him not to panic when things get tough.

That’s a trait Alexander learned from his long time as an expert penalty taker, scoring 77 spot-kicks from 85 attempts.

“I learned about emotional control over my time as a player and not panicking,” he said.

“I think that came from my penalty-taking practice. If you panic in that situation, you’ve got no chance.

Graham Alexander scores a penalty for Burnley against Hull in 2010 (Image: PA)

“I learned a lot of emotional control over that. That helped me control my thoughts and trust my training.

“If I look back, if there was any time in my career when I panicked, it was very rarely successful as a player.

“If you’re panicking and thinking, ‘oh my God, we’ve got to do this’, it wasn’t usually a good outcome.

“It was better when you sat down, thought about it, spoke to people and you came up with a sensible solution.

“There are times in games when it’s instant, you might have to make substitutes and it’s really quick. But if you have time to think then take it to address it.

“You learn a lot over your career as a player and a manager and in life just growing up.

“I would like to think you try to advance your skill set as you go along. If you don’t, then you’re not really being self-reflective.”

Alexander is approaching 12 years since landing his first full-time management post at Fleetwood.

Plenty has changed in the job in that time, including the reach of social media, but the priority remains the same.

Graham Alexander and Chris Lucketti on the touchline for Fleetwood (Image: PA)

“I was well aware going into my first job the need to win games.

“As I got older in my playing career, I spoke to managers and had good conversations with people.

“When I was going into the management game, I spoke to a couple of mentors. They told me that ‘win games’ was rule number one – and two and three.

“That hasn’t changed but there are outside things. Social media has gone through the roof in the last few years.

“It doesn’t impact me at all because I don’t have it. But I know it impacts people around me, so ultimately it does affect me second hand.

'Social media has long-reaching tentacles'

“Family, friends, players, staff, people you work for – all that sort of thing. It has long-reaching tentacles.

“It’s the same with everything. I deal with it if I feel there’s a need.

“If I feel someone’s being affected by it in a negative way, then I have to speak to them and try to give them some semblance of reality.

“There are other things, agents, transfer windows which have come in through my time, different rule changes to managers.

“There’s a lot of stuff you have to learn as you go along.

“But what I’ve always tried to do is break my job down to quite simple basics and that’s getting a group of players together to win a game of football as often as possible.”

Alexander has learned to keep the “other stuff” away from the dressing room as much as possible. But he admits that is not as easy as it was when he was still playing.

“There were loads of times in my career when I didn’t have a clue what was going on behind the scenes upstairs or financially at the club,” he added.

Jack Shepherd and Jay Benn celebrate City's goal at Morecambe (Image: Thomas Gadd)

“It didn’t interest me anyway because I just wanted to play football.

“But I can’t remember managers coming in and having meetings with players about this, that and the other on that side of it.

“I was very fortunate that the managers dealt with all that with good intentions and keeping it away from the players.

“That was probably easier back then because there was no social media. Our exposure to things that went on outside of the pitch was less than it is for players nowadays.

“But I do try to deal with the other stuff, as much as I can, away from the players. Let them enjoy their football and let me and my staff worry about the rest.”