I Don't Regret Move To The Black Cats...

It was risk I had to take – Grayson.

- Chris Dunlavy

SIMON Grayson returned to management last week, seemingly unscathed by a savage three-month stint at Sunderland.

“It’s not discouraged me,” insisted the 48-year-old, who won just three of his 18 games at the Stadium of Light before being sacked at the end of October. “And it hasn’t scarred me, either. Was it nice getting sacked so soon after taking the job? Of course not. But the only thing it really did was hurt my pride.”

Yet the short-term deal Grayson has signed at Bradford suggests otherwise. By his own admission, the former Leicester defender has always sought stability.

“I’ve always tried to build football clubs,” he says. “I had three years at Leeds and Blackpool, four-and-a-half at Preston.

“I lasted 18 months at Huddersfield. Even then, (chairman) Dean Hoyle has often said to me ‘I was probably a bit too harsh on you there’.”

But when Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp, the Bantams’ German co-owners, begged Stuart McCall’s replacement to sign a three-year contract, Grayson agreed only to see out the season.

At his unveiling on Thursday, Grayson played the diplomat. “I want to know that everything is right from my perspective,” he insisted.

“But I also want the owners to be sure that I’m right for them. They’ve invested quite heavily in me and if it doesn’t work out – for whatever reason – then they don’t want to be lumbered with a payout.”

Yet the Yorkshireman also knows that McCall spent much of the last 12 months at loggerheads with his paymasters, who demanded a significant say in everything from recruitment to tactics and team selection.

Already seduced by one whited sepulchre at Sunderland, Grayson was not about to bind himself to another.

Confidence