Whitehead signed a deal (or at least agreed it) under the Hood regime. So, all this about signing a long term contract and then jumping is a bit false really.

In the real world most of us are on 1-3 month’s notice and would gladly leave our current employer in the poo if a better offer was elsewhere – more so if we’d been head hunted regardless of how long we may have been in an organisation.

Whitehead is in his mid-twenties (?) and is likely to have only 6-7 years to maximise his income. He’s not played in a major final, is very unlikely to do so any time soon with the Bulls and at the end of his career, what will he be able to say? I stayed at Bradford for 10-12 years……Other players from the past were slightly different, in terms that they had won things with us and just wanted a new challenge (or at least they could say that without stating the money card – I’m pretty sure one, if not all of Pryce, Fielden and Peacock will have received more money when moving on regardless of what has been said in the past in books and interviews).

The lad would probably have had offers to jump ship when the vultures were circling last year, so give the lad some credit when he could have done a Koppy and gone for nothing. Personally I think although the timing isn’t brilliant, he has at least been upfront and honest about it and gone through the right channels – he’s not bad mouthed the club, has spoken with his agent and the coaching staff and it is they who have made the decision not to have him available for selection. If I’d been Franny, given our lack of numbers – I may have stated that IF Whitehead stays professional, trains hard and warrants selection, he will be considered for the team. To have him not training is a bit silly, but not being close to the squad, hopefully Franny has taken the right decision and it won’t impact the rest of the team.

From a personal point of view, I believe that if Whitehead wants to play for England, win trophies, realise his potential etc, he will need to leave Bradford to a play for a better club and be in different surroundings. It’s quite clear that we’re not going to be challenging for honours any time soon and other coaches may be able to iron out the errors and tackling deficiencies in his game.

There have been times when he’s looked as though he may push on and become an England player. He’s not going to do that if he’s not happy and has become stagnant.

There are two ways to look at it as I see it.

1. Moan like hell about him and give him grief and don’t actually make much of a difference.
2. Sell him to anyone who will have him and get as good a deal as possible for the club.

It is clear that we are spending under the salary cap and if whoever we sell him to (for example Warrington for ease of this argument) need to move other players from their cap for the rest of the year, we have plenty of space for the rest of the season to accommodate them.

We could end up in a situation where Whitehead goes to Wire, we receive Blythe / Evans permanently and obtain the services of a couple of fringe players, or potentially a “first teamer” out of contract at the end of the year at Wire who they are planning to release for the rest of this season.

One thing to remember is that there is no prize money for finishing 9th down in the table. If the club have banked on finishing in the top 8 for budgeting purposes (and we all think we’re sailing close to the wind money wise), then we may need to speculate to accumulate….to ensure a top 8 finish and a share of prize money.

At the moment we are short on quality and bodies – any deal that increases either is only going to be beneficial to the club.

Who would you sign to replace him?

Who said we need to replace him? We have adequate cover at second row. If we were going to lose anyone from any position then 2nd row is where it would be.

One plays behind the most dominant front row in the league and a week or two back one played behind Evans, Fairbank, Langley and Scruton. You're comparing apples with oranges.

Enough said.

It seems a strange time from Whitehead's pov, less than a year after signing a long term contract. I guess it puts the value of contracts into perspective.

To say he wants to join a top four club, he's not exactly been in 'top four club' form recently. That said, he has been outstanding[certainly on attackin the recent past and is one of those I'd hoped the club could 'hang its hat on' in the short term future - at least he plays in a position in which we're hardly short of bodies, and if we get some transfer fee, we may be able to put it to a prop, where we have a definite need. Not sure which of the top four clubs is going to look at Elliott and say, "he's better than what we've got", though....nor which club would have a gap on the cap and be willing to spend it on the hope that Elliott grows into the player who fulfils their hopes.

My overreaching feeling though is disappointment that a Bradford born player would leave like this, though conversely I can understand how he might feel.

Whoops.

TBF Whitehead's crap defence hasn't just been a feature of this season has it? He's been as poor when behind Hargreaves, Burgess, Scruton, Manoakafoa and Kopczak.

Farrell may be playing in a better side but his defensive stats are something to aspire to rather than make excuses for.

If he wants to go to a top four club, surely it can't be us (Salford)...We almost certainly won't be top 4 next year either!

But unless you are Mick Worrincy players, especially forwards, usually improve their defence & off loads. I would expect specialist one to one coaching every week to progress. I doubt he would have made progress to first grade down under with such poor technique.

Disappointing attitude. Especially for a Bradford lad. FC going the right thing as far as I am concerned.