Simon Parker column

Macca raps slack City: The headline neatly summed up the frustration of another away-day setback.

Dreams of a play-off push remained just that, although the gap to the relegation trapdoor and potential non-league oblivion was still reassuringly large.

But this wasn’t Stuart McCall bemoaning the result at Lincoln. This was January 23, 2008 after the Bantams had let victory at Bury slip through their grasp to a late wonder strike.

Look at the tables after 25 games then and now and they are strikingly similar.

City currently sit in a precarious 16th spot with 30 points. Two years ago, the draw at Bury meant they were a point better off but still a place lower.

Now, they are a distant ten points off the seventh-placed cut-off for the play-offs and 11 off Grimsby in 23rd. Then, the difference was a dozen points both ways.

The team of 2008, unlike this squad, were on an upturn. They had won three of the previous four games before Bury and were to follow it up with seven points from the next nine.

Nobody needs reminding that’s hardly the case at this moment; no wins in six since beating a woeful Darlington and just one point in 15.

And yet, City are treading water just as much as at this stage in McCall’s debut season in charge.

They could have dropped three places in midweek but didn’t. Results elsewhere featuring Barnet, Macclesfield and Lincoln fell conveniently.

It is dangerous to rely on favours from others but maybe there was a hint that the mid-season slump has bottomed out.

Proof of the pudding, of course, will come just before 5pm on the English riviera. Anything less than a win against Torquay and the knives will be razor sharp.

It is a big afternoon for the team and a critical one for Stuart McCall, whose future is clouded with uncertainty.

Fans point to a Groundhog Day scenario as City generally put up a decent fight but come away empty-handed again and again.

For observers, it has the helpless feel of last season’s awful spring and that nine-match slump without a win that killed off promotion ambitions.

But worse, the table smacks of two years ago and that season of nothingness and playing out time for the final two months.

A repeat would hardly offer a great backdrop when the season tickets are relaunched in March, especially as the prices are expected to go up significantly compared with the Christmas deal.

The consequences of a continuing run of defeats is unthinkable. But even a mild recovery will only ensure a string of ‘dead’ matches in the closing weeks.

McCall, as you would expect, fights on through the eye of the storm. He firmly believes a couple of wins and the wind will change.

The board say nothing and get criticised for it. But any public pronouncements – other than to deliver a firm decision – could be taken either way.

City are living in a vacuum while the long-suffering fans are entitled to think: We’ve been here before.