{"id":558783,"date":"2020-07-20T05:52:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T09:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=558783"},"modified":"2020-12-28T11:27:17","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T16:27:17","slug":"richard-odonnell-extends-bradford-city-contract-to-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/20\/richard-odonnell-extends-bradford-city-contract-to-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard O\u2019Donnell Extends Bradford City Contract to 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/search\/bradford+city\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bradford City<\/a> goalkeeper <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/89265c89\/Richard-ODonnell\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard O\u2019Donnell<\/a> has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk\/news\/2020\/july\/odonnell-extends-city-stay\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed a two-year contract extension<\/a> to keep him at the club until 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year old shot-stopper conceded just 34 goals in 33 league appearances last season, helping the Bantams to a ninth-place finish in <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/category\/league-football\/league12\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">League Two<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bradford were just four points off the play-offs when the season was prematurely ended due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n<h2>Richard O\u2019Donnell Extends Bradford City Contract<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\udcf0 BREAKING NEWS | We are delighted to announce that <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichODonnell23?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@RichODonnell23<\/a> has put pen to paper on a two-year contract extension!<\/p>\n<p>\u27a1\ufe0f | Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dyqw95fzuA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/dyqw95fzuA<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BCAFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BCAFC<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CityForAll?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CityForAll<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JBDKuyCWRx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/JBDKuyCWRx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bradford City AFC (@officialbantams) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/officialbantams\/status\/1285107039224639488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said?<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking to the club website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk\/news\/2020\/july\/odonnell-extends-city-stay\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">O\u2019Donnell said<\/a>: \u201cI am delighted to get this deal over the line. As soon as the offer was made, it was pretty clear what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the gaffer first told me he wanted me to stay, I said straight away that this was the club I wanted to be at.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy family have all really taken to Bradford City over the past two years and it was a no-brainer for me once the offer was on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bantams manager Stuart McCall was equally enthusiastic about the deal and praised his No.1\u2019s experience and loyalty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are delighted to have an experienced goalkeeper like Richard with us again for the next two seasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDue to the current circumstances, it has taken a while for us to actually put a solid deal on the table, even though we have remained in constant dialogue with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has accepted a deal on reduced terms and turned down offers from elsewhere, which I think speaks volumes of his loyalty to our club.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>EFL Veteran<\/h3>\n<p>With 289 EFL appearances for ten different clubs, O\u2019Donnell is one of the most experienced goalkeepers in the Football League.<\/p>\n<p>The Yorkshireman arrived at Valley Parade from Northampton Town in 2018 and quickly cemented the number one spot. O\u2019Donnell missed just four games in his debut season but couldn\u2019t prevent the Bantams from being relegated from League One.<\/p>\n<p>In his second season, O\u2019Donnell kept ten clean sheets in 33 matches to help Bradford achieve the fourth-best defensive record in the league.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"Sb7zNi6IQfZ0oB4oDwp1Ew\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1181294040\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Sb7zNi6IQfZ0oB4oDwp1Ew',sig:'Gt2hRy-8KlvMZ_5lg5G8WiAmvCnyhDawgBKCYY-Gd5k=',w:'594px',h:'473px',items:'1181294040',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bradford City goalkeeper Richard O\u2019Donnell has signed a two-year contract extension to keep him at the club until 2022. The 31-year old shot-stopper conceded just 34 goals in 33 league appearances last season, helping the Bantams to a ninth-place finish in League Two. Bradford were just four points off the play-offs when the season was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3531,"featured_media":558789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,30],"tags":[2939,168,520,6102,136],"class_list":["post-558783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-news","tag-bradford-city","tag-efl","tag-league-two","tag-richard-odonnell","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}