I usually have a look at a few of those podcasts where they predict the outcome of the upcoming round of fixtures and a pattern emerged as far as Cardiff City were concerned as the verdicts that we weren’t going to beat today’s visitors to Cardiff City Stadium, Bradford City, mounted up.
I was quite surprised that so many felt that the unbeaten league leaders with the best defensive record in the EFL were going to drop points, albeit against the team which sat in second position.
However, when the reason for us failing to win was given, I had to agree with the forecaster in most cases because they were saying that our results were masking some pretty indifferent performances- how could I not agree with them, they were right.
Before I go on, I should say that Bradford were very impressive in inflicting that first defeat on us. City could have no complaints at the outcome – their opponents looked fitter than them, more committed and generally better in terms of pace and physicality, it should be said as well that they were more skillful than us and had an annoying habit of getting a defender in the way of goal bound efforts!
Bradford effectively killed the game as a contest when they made it 3-0 just four minutes into the second half, but the truth is that it wouldn’t have taken too much to change for us to be going in 3-0 down at half time last weekend at Stockport, rather than just the single goal behind.
Similarly, while I thought we were the better team for long stretches of the Cup game at Exeter on Tuesday, our opponents had the better chances and so could feel somewhat unfortunate to have lost 1-0.
Our performances have dipped since the international break, no doubt about that and it seems to me that confidence levels must have dipped while fixtures were suspended for a fortnight. To be fair, we came back quite impressively at Stockport in the closing minutes of the game. However, before that (and before the arrival of some younger substitutes), there were depressing reminders of last season as some of the more experienced players rather made it look that they weren’t equipped mentally or physically to cope with some of the questions they were being asked.
For all that Bradford were good today, City made life easy for them at times. Brian Barry-Murphy called his team naive after the match and, for a side with such a good goals against record, that adjective certainly applied to some of their defending.
A bugbear of mine even in what has still been a very good start to the season has been the lack of quality on our “final ball”. Well, there were a few examples of that weakness today, but, in all honesty, our final ball wasn’t too bad today – the problem was that this meant we showed another old favourite from last season, poor finishing technique.
Cian Ashford had an early air shot from a good Rubin Colwill cross and failed to hit the target from what, to be fair, was a tough chance from a Joel Bagan cross, just before half time. Yousef Salech again showed the odd inconsistencies in his heading technique. There was one excellent header guided into the path of David Turnbull who got away one of those shots that a defender managed to block without knowing too much about it. However, by contrast, there was a poor contact on a close range header which a Bradford defender managed to scramble back to his keeper and, although the header he hit the crossbar with in the second half was hardly a sitter, the fact he didn’t have to jump for it made it quite a bit easier for him and I can’t help thinking he should have got it on target at the very least..
Finally, it is a source of considerable frustration to me that someone with the ability to strike a ball as well as Rubin Colwill can gets it wrong so often when presented with the sort of shooting opportunity from the edge of the penalty area he had on two occasions in the second half today.
How Colwill would have wished he could have hit a twenty five yarder like Tommy Leigh did when Josh Neufville rolled a corner into his path. That was how City conceded their first league goal that wasn’t a penalty this season – perhaps some will say that we should have got out quicker to close Leigh down or had someone patrolling the edge of the penalty area, but I’d prefer to give Bradford credit for a clever and unusual set piece routine.
The goal came just past the quarter of an hour mark and for five minutes or so, City responded well and could feel somewhat unfortunate not to have come up with an equaliser.
However, when Bradford broke through a massive hole in the left side of our defence (no sign of any winger covering for Bagan) on thirty minutes, the upshot was Gabriel Osho bringing down Antoni Sarcevic with a rash challenge to concede an obvious penalty on his league debut for us.
Sarcevic blasted his penalty down the middle as Nathan Trott dived out of the way to double the visitor’s lead. As for Osho, it was a Curate’s Egg of a performance with other awkward moments interspersed with a few things to suggest he’ll be a good signing for us eventually, but, for now, I have to say that we really did miss the injured Dylan Lawlor who is still not out of his teens yet more than we should have done!
The rest of the first half made for grisly viewing as we teetered on the edge of collapse as Bradford got right on top and Sarcevic really should have made it three when he headed over from point blank range after Bradford made a mess of the right side of our defence this time.
City swapped Ronan Kpakio for Perry Ng at half time (it seems the youngster was suffering with an injury that BBM admitted to being quite concerned about after the game). Ng made some encouraging early contributions, but the visitors continued their habit of making mincemeat of our flanks when Pointon got free down Bradford’s left to set up Neufville for an easy finish from fifteen yards.
BBM was forced into the sort of desperate substitutions he made at Stockport, but this time, it was a lot earlier in the game when the changes came and the good news is that the arrival of Callum Robinson, Isaak Davies and Joel Colwill did improve the team.
In the case of the first named, it seems that his goal in midweek had done him a lot of good as I thought it was his best contribution off the bench so far this season. Robinson also gave City some hope with a somewhat lucky goal as a clearance hit Will Fish and Osho’s shot was deflected into his path – I say lucky, but it was a good finish with the luck coming in how the ball found its way to Robinson.
For me, Davies has been playing well for weeks and, with Ashford off his game in recent weeks and Willock falling a long way short of his recent standards today, surely he has to start a game soon? He was lively and bright again today with my one small reservation being that as someone who is paying well and is, possibly, the best finisher at the club, I’d like to see him getting into central areas more.
I was in favour of pairing Wintle and Turnbull before the game, but soon had to admit that it wasn’t working – n fact, there were times when we were overrun in central midfield. Although Joel Colwill made little impact as we struggled at Stockport last weekend, he had the movement and dynamism that had been lacking when he came on and won us no end of free kicks as Rotherham showed a few signs of tiring in the closing stages.
Another sub, Omari Kellyman, came up with his best bit of play to set up Robinson whose shot flew very narrowly wide. If that had gone in, we might have seen a very interesting finish, but, as it was, Bradford played out the remaining minutes looking more likely than us to score the game’s fifth goal.
things went a lot better at age group level as the under 18s went to Coventry, an Academy we’ve tended to struggle against down the years, at lunchtime and won 4-2. Mannie Barton got two and Leeyon Phelan and Riley Hilaire-Clark the others as we won for a third straight game at under 18 lecvel. The under 21s are also doing pretty well – they won 2-0 against Watford at Vicarage Road yesterday with Troy Perrett and an own goal completing the scoring before half time.
In local football, the app I use had Ton Pentre down as drawing 1-1 at Vale United and losing 3-0 at Cardiff Cosmos in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Championship, so I don’t know what happened there! In Division One East, there were goals galore at Pentyrch Rangers Seniors where Treorchy Boys and Girls were beaten 6-4.
The old type of active football was to pass the ball to the SPACE for a forward and not to the feet, especially to the feet faced the home goal not receiver of the ball looking static or turnback time after time.
Hi Paul.
Thanks, as ever, for the write-up and agree with your observations.
We were well- beaten by a very impressive Bradford team. They showed far more hunger, desire and creativity from the off and best team we have seen so far this season. Not really superstitious, but I feared the worst when we did not win the toss and play towards our usual ends each half!
To the game itself I think too many had an off-day for us and we always seemed second best to any loose/ second balls. Our passing and pressing game of the opening few matches not as fluent – think it was early second half before Fish ( who was the pick of the defenders) pinged one of his 50 yard diagonals to the wing whereas in earlier games he, or Lawlor, were doing same 3 or 4 times each half!
In our impressive run – until yesterday – I did wonder what would happen if a well-organised opponent got on the front foot against us and countered our press with their own sense of urgency and directness, and think got the answer yesterday.
Bradford were well-organised, direct and skilful and seemed to have periods where our midfield was completely over-run. Wintle not his usual self and Ashford and Willock not tracking back much to help, little alone impressing enough going forward. Definitely too much space on the flanks and both full backs found a bit wanting – at least Ng locked things down a bit before picking up his customary booking!
Agree that jury still out on Osho. Seems to have pace and good distribution, but couple of errors with the clumsy penalty being a real shocker.
Final gripe about our corners and feee kicks. Just when I thought we were generally getting better at these this season, we succeeded in delivering nearly every one straight into the arms of Bradford’s giant keeper. No imagination shown to vary things or play it short etc – unlike Bradford who were consistently inventive at set pieces.
General mood around me – and the chatter on Sloper Road upon exit – seemed to be that we were well-beaten and the youngsters need some support with the crazy fixture schedule ahead of us. A real test of our lightweight squad now as some of our older guard are not as comfortable playing the BBM way if they now step in, so feel a tricky few weeks ahead while we re-group. However, could be a blessing in disguise as think some of the players – and supporters – were getting carried away with our great start when most of us have seen glimpses in recent weeks of some cracks.
Still, game in hand and lots of learning from that one which should stand us in good stead in the longer-term.
Cheers
Huw
Thank-you, Paul, as ever, for your comments on yesterday’s game. They were much appreciated.
Saturday was a sobering experience, wasn’t it? My view has always been that it was asking a lot for the youngsters who make up much of the squad to be the bedrock of the 2025-26 team. Two or three extra hardy souls who know their way around the 3rd Division were necessary. Failure to accomplish this has put a heavy burden on those youngsters who are taking their first steps in the professional game. Much has been made of the youthfulness of City’s team this season but we were worked over by a bunch of seasoned, street-wise pros. Six of the visitor’s starting line-up were over 28 yrs of age (and five over 30 yrs). That experience served them well.
For the game proper, Bradford City played well and thoroughly deserved their victory, although I felt we made it a little too easy for them. They took full advantage of our short-comings and there can be no complaints over the 1-3 score-line. Individual errors are now creeping into our game and we need to be more clinical in front of goal.
I do hope that BB-M does not have his own Amorim achilles heel. The Man Utd manager is wedded to his 3421 come what may yet our City team is certainly finding it difficult to come to terms with a team playing with three-at-the-back. So it proved on Saturday (and, most glaringly, at Port Vale and Stockport). Simply put, our 4231 puts a huge, mostly unrewarded outing, against three centre-backs for our lone striker. Without Tanner (who goes inside and outside a defender) our cutting in can become predictable. While it would be churlish to overly criticise our new manager for this, I am certainly not seeking to be so, for he has done a remarkable first couple of months in S Wales, but I’m sure a more flexible attitude would bring dividends. By playing 442 against a sweeper system, two strikers would prevent the two spare defenders from coming forward. Moreover two genuine wingers would stop the sight we saw on Saturday of Wright (left wing back; #17) and Neufville (right wing back; #7) spending so much time in the final third of the pitch that they were virtual wingers.
Finally a word about the gent wearing the fetching yellow top. After barely 60 seconds a Bradford player went headlong over a non-challenge a yard outside the box and a freekick was awarded. There was no contact. He went down like a sack of spuds. Even the commentator on the stream said it was a good challenge from Wintle. No sooner were the words uttered than you heard the shrill tone of the whistle. The die had been cast. On 15 mins two challenges on Colwill, where he was wrestled to the ground went unpunished. This resulted in Bradford’s first goal as they broke forward. Just before the interval, Wintle made an excellent clean tackle on the half-way line, won the ball, and promptly got booked. An awful challenge on Ng (65 mins) within inches of the penalty area again went unpunished. Furthermore the amount of time-wasting was beyond at throws and goal-kicks. No player was spoken to or cautioned. The referee has averaged 3.76 bookings per game during his career. On Saturday he booked EIGHT and I would say many more deserving cautions were ignored.
One final word, a plea of sorts I guess. Osho could certainly do a job as a central defensive midfielder with those driving runs of his.
Thanks, Paul, as ever for doing the hard yards for us.
Before I say another word, let me say how good it is to see my near contemporary AMO* make a contribution. He is a man who has healthwise been under the weather somewhat these past couple of years, and it is great to see him contributing his usual sound sense here.
And how accurate those words were: we have a major problem with BBM… his ‘Pepitis’ is deeply ingrained. There were signs in his first few games that this chap would insist on passing FORWARD… but it has turned out to be some sort of mirage. I rubbed my eyes watching the Bradford game and thought ‘Bulutball’ had returned.
I predicted after the Port Vale game that strong fit teams would have a field day with our build up, (our suicidally dangerous playing out from the back)**… and although there were a couple of games when BBM half converted me to his cause, those fears have never gone away… and the chickens (or rather, one might say ‘the BANTAMS’) really came home to roost on Saturday.
A proper wake-up call.
Paul, you suggest that the result surprised the tipsters. Maybe. But I predicted it. As did Ali Maxwell on our mutually appreciated ‘NOTT20’ podcast… who made it his ‘banker’ away win bet in his predictions a week ago.
I will make another prediction now: we won’t make the top three with BBMball. I predict in no particular order: Bradford, Bolton and Stockport.
We may as well sell the talented Salech in January, since BBM’s insistence that his wingers constantly turn back and never try to beat their opposing full back on the outside… means that the boy is starved of service.
And yes Steve, I too think a fit Tanner is our best hope as a true winger… but alas he lacks real pace.
*those were Anthony’s initials on his satchel as he boarded the bus every day to Pontypridd Grammar School.
**Perhaps we have no option… as Trott’s long kicks are – directionwise – pretty poor. Jak should give him some lessons… if that is, he feels mentally up to it.
BBM should be careful… I want to say ‘a penny for the thoughts’ of Burnley and Leicester City right now… when it comes to Matty Beard.
The full facts will come out shortly, but right now it seems that Beard was sacked by Liverpool in Feb, and decided to throw in his lot with Third Division Burnley… having been impressed by the plans and sincerity of the Mormon Americans at the helm there. He signed a contract with them on June 19th… and I’d guess that the very genuine Mormon folk put a lot of effort into making him feel at home… and invested a lot of time into Matty and their big project.
However a couple of months after he signed on as manager, his head was turned by Leicester: but Burnley, pretty peeved, quite rightly insisted he honoured his contract and refused him permission to talk to WSL Leicester.
It seemingly got a bit fraught, and Burnley put him on gardening leave…
No doubt Matty had realised that he had acted too swiftly in taking the Burnley job, and should have waited for the first round of sackings at WSL level… and then (given his impressive CV) he would automatically be a strong candidate to return to his rightful place in the top flight.
And then ten days before the season started, Leicester upped the ante by sacking their French manager. With the threat of a protracted legal wrangle, I have no doubt that sleepless nights for Matty followed… and we all know the rest.
Now please BBM… remember that awful saga. Please be careful with Jak’s mental health. The way you are treating him is disgusting.
He was my player of the season last year… despite the number of goals we shipped. Less than five all season were down to him… and if Horvath had been between the sticks throughout, we’d have shipped a lot more. Who can forget our American showing all the mobility of a Madame Tussauds’ Gordon Banks at Norwich?
TTFN,
Dai.
PS:
Against Bradford City BB-M belated changed to a 442 formation and we made a better fist of the last 30 mins. At the very least this change was 30 mins too late and at worst surely should have been our starting formation. But these are early days in BB-M’s reign. Hopefully normal service will be resumed on Saturday.
Paul compadre…
Oh, I forgot to say that the Bantams were without their best striker… God help us if 34 year old Andy Cook had been playing.
Three weeks ago I saw the whole of their 2-1 victory over a Grimsby side on a high after just a week previously having scored 14 goals against Manchester United in less than 120 minutes.
Grimsby were leading until the 65th minute, and then on came Cook, in his first appearance since what should have been a career-ending ACL injury (given his age) some 244 days before.
What does he then do? He transforms the game and scores two absolutely stunning headers to win the Vertu trophy game for the Bantams.
https://tinyurl.com/4emeresn
DW
Thanks for all of the replies. Great to hear from you again Anthony, I agree about passing into space, but you don’t see a great deal of it these days do you. Maybe we’d see more passing into space if the player I rate our best finisher, Isaak Davies, was played through the middle more?
Huw, I’m amazed that more sides don’t do what Bradford did and turn us around to attack the Canton Stand in the the first half – we clearly want to play towards it in the second half, so my thinking would always be, do what they least want you to. I’ll stick to my opinion that I feel BBM has done superbly so far, but there are two things I’d be critical of him about currently. First, I don’t get why Isaak Davies, who has been playing well all season, is not starting more games and, second, as you alude to, we rerally should have bought one or two more players in (I don’t think we needed any more than that) and we might end up paying for going with such a small first team squad.
Steve, I read somewhere that Bradford are the oldest team in League One and I’ll put a couple of suggestions to you regarding age. First, I still say Bradford played well and deserved their win, but I thought their age was showing at times once Robinson scored – the number of cheap fouls they started to concede said to me that they were finding it hard going physically and I thought that with a bit more thought and precision, we could have ended up0 with a draw. We weren’t good enougth though and BBM talked about us being “naive” in those closing stages – I’ll come to why I don’t think “naive” was quite the right word shortly, but I felt we lacked cool heads who could have seen what was happening and acted upon it.
To return to our alleged naivety, I’d like to point out that the team which started on Saturday was probably the OLDEST we’ve fielded all season and it was older still in the second half. Not all of the older players were poor – as I mnetioned in my piece, Robinson was more effective coming off the bench than he-has been all season, Ng was probably an improvement on Kpakio, whio it seems was carrying a heel injury and apart from his rash penalty concession, Osho didn’t do badly. However given a choice between more Lawlor and Fish and Osho and Fish, I would currently choose the former, although I believe Osho will establish himself as a first team starter once he’s fully match tuned. Similarlly, it was a real shame to say Willock reverting to the 24/25 version of himself and the Wintle/Turnbull midfield axis just did not work – I think their lack of pace found them out. Although we were thr younger side, Bradford had more pace than us and I think now that we did not have the speed to play on the front foot- we gave our worst display of the season with our oldest, and slowest, team of the season .
We went down last season, not because the formation we played was wrong, it was more to do with us moving the ball too slowly, not being clinical enough in front of goal or organised enough when defending our goal. Although our defending wasn’t great omn Saturday, I’m pretty sure that our goals against record will be a big improvement this season on what it was last season. I wish I could be as optimistic about the pace of our play and our finishing though last weekend at Stockport was an uncomfortable reminder as to how we were second best in so many of our games in terms of moving the ball with pace and purpose and it was there again on Saturday – as was, unfortunately, our lack of quality in front of goal.
Dai, my intention was to say that I was surprised by how tipsters had gone against us, but, a bit more thought should have persuaded me that they were right as our results were turning out to be better than our performances – the pundits were right to back against us as we’ve been a different team since the last international break.
I’m not sure it’s the type of football BBM is getting us to play that’s the problem – when sides sit deep against us, (e.g. Peterborough, Rotherham and, to a lesser extent, Plymouth) BBM ball has generally worked. On the other hand, against teams that have been physical and more “front foot” in their approach, they’ve caused us problems (e.g. Port Vale, Stockport and Bradford). Some of that can be put down to our youngsters finding such an approach problematic I suppose, but I think we’ve started to rely too much again on players who failed us last season a bit more since the last international break. As a result, the signs are that, when our opponents don’t treat us with the sort of respect a team which has been relegated to the third tier for the first time in twenty two years might deserve, some of our more senior players are again being found wanting despite the drop in standards between the Championship and League One.
Thanks Paul for your usual fine summing up of our comments. Just one thing intrigues me…
Do you reckon that away teams all know about our preferred choice of end to attack in the first half of every game?
Liverpool wanting to attack the Kop in the 2nd half… fair enough. That is something that every football manager knows. But us, and our own 2nd half penchant for the Canton Stand? Are opposition teams aware, and do they really build this into their thinking?
And here’s a question that results from that… are there any teams in the whole pyramid that have no particular preference?
And talking of thoughts… here is an additional darker one. Matt Beard and Ricky Hatton were born the same year… 31 years after me…viz 1978.
I cannot help but think that Ricky’s tragic decision just 6 days before, was the one single factor that pushed Matt over the edge.
RIP both.
D.
With us having been in the second tier for about eighty per cent of this century Dai, there are plenty of teams around that have been travelling to Cardiff City Stadium virtually every year since the ground opened and if they don’t know which way City prefer to play in the second half by now, they need shooting, If I were a manager, I’d spend what would only be a small amount of time finding out which way every team in the division prefers to play in the second half and, unless something like a very bright sun making it awkward for keepers was a factor, I’d tell my captain to change ends and get the opposition to play towards their own fans in the first half. I’ve been amazed to read a few City fans saying what a shrewd move it was for Bradford to get City to change ends when to me it’s a bleeding obvious thing to do and it’s a source of amazement to me that sometimes we go a whole season without one opposing team getting us to play towards the end we’d rather attack in the second half for the first forty five minutes.