| Bradford City 0 |
| Manchester United Under 21s 3 |
| Songo’o 47 (OG), Hugill 57, Hoogewerf 82 |
By Jason McKeown
It was the margins that proved the most concerning. Manchester United’s talented teenagers put in an assured second half performance that spoke volumes for the future of a football club with a rich tradition of producing young players. But did it really have to look this easy?
For Bradford City, this was a night of precious few positives. More gloom, to add another coat of grey to the clouds settling over the club. No goals, again. A month now since the last victory. And the depth of the squad continues to look too shallow.
Especially with the post-match news that forwards Caolon Lavery and Theo Robinson are likely to miss the weekend’s League Two trip to a resurgent Crawley Town. Tonight was supposed to offer the pair a chance to stake a claim for a starting berth, but Robinson picked up an injury in training and Lavery didn’t survive the warm up.
It was hard to know which was the more troubling sight, watching Alex Gilliead deployed as lone striker, following a last-minute reshuffle, or the second half introduction of Andy Cook – now City’s only fit striker, and who shoulders even more responsibility for reviving the goal-shy Bantams. At least the risking of Cook here didn’t end with him joining Lee Angol, Abo Eisa, Lavery and Robinson on the treatment table.
Cook came on 64 minutes into a contest that by then looked beyond City, following a two-goal Manchester United Under 21s burst at the beginning of the second half. He replaced Jorge Sikora after an evening where the 19-year-old took his place in a youthful Bantams backline that did well on occasions but was ultimately found wanting in crucial moments.
It was heartening to see Sikora, Reece Staunton and midfielder Kian Scales given an opportunity at last, alongside Finn Cousin-Dawson, who made his first appearance since his losing his place when away on international duty. Each had their moments – Staunton’s distribution on the ball was eye-catching at times, and he looked more effective in possession than Facre Kheller – but, ultimately, none of the homegrown quartet did enough to suggest Derek Adams has been wrong to overlook them.
It is a difficult dilemma, and no one – least of all Adams – should write them off on this experience. Having enjoyed runs in the team last season, it can’t have been easy for Staunton and Scales especially to acclimatise to the backwards steps they’ve taken this season. Nevertheless, high standards are badly needed at this club. Ultimately, they need to show more. “We’ve given everyone an opportunity and no one can complain now,” was Adams’ less-than-cryptic assessment.
Perhaps a measure of Scales’ lack of conviction came in those final stages when Cook was leading the line. A rare Manchester United U21 mistake had allowed the City striker to run at goal, from a wide position. Scales broke into the box and had space. Cook should have passed to the teenager – but wrongly chose to go alone, which meant he was closed down and had to hit a shot from a tight angle that was never going to go in. Scales should have berated Cook for not passing, but kept his head down and didn’t say a word.
It doesn’t matter that Cook is his senior. If Scales wants a first team spot, he ultimately has to act like a first team player. And that meant giving Cook a deserved telling off.
It’s little things like that which will concern Adams. Over the 90 minutes Scales showed some good moments and came close to putting City in front in the first half. Can he show that greater confidence? Be aggressive and more demanding of the ball? That’s the bar he must strive to reach.
If Adams won’t be doing cartwheels about the performance of the younger players tonight, he will probably also be concerned that he didn’t get much better from others. Levi Sutton was busy at least, doing a reasonable job staking his name for a place in the starting XI ahead of a struggling Elliot Watt and Gareth Evans. Sadly, the same can’t be said for Yann Songo’o, who is yet to get going since his summer arrival. Perhaps, like Evans a year ago, a disrupted pre-season leaves him playing catch up, but he should be capable of better.
Songo’o inadvertently opened the scoring when, early in the second half, a corner was partially cleared by Sam Hornby but met with a shot from Charlie Savage – son of Robbie – that hit the City midfielder and nestled into the back of the net. 10 minutes later, a mistake by Matty Foulds ended with Joe Hugill bundling home a second goal. In between City had a couple of sights on goal but – predictability – lacked a clinical edge to trouble United stopper Matej Kovar.
Foulds, who was finally making his full City debut, had a difficult night too and almost gifted a third goal with a poor pass. And then late on Songo’o – who was moved to centre back when Sikora was taken off – slipped over and Dillon Hoogewerf ran through to make it 3-0. It was cue for an exodus of home supporters, whilst a 200+ Manchester United away following – who made terrific noise throughout – ramped up the chanting even more. Just like Saturday, the final whistle saw some home boos.
In and amongst Adams’ impressive achievements at Morecambe last season was a notable cup record – they reached the third round of both the League Cup and FA Cup, where they were beaten by Premier League opposition. They did bow out of the Football League trophy at the group stage, but they achieved one notable victory – they won 4-0 against Manchester United U21s.
These are early days into his Valley Parade tenure, but so far Adams has had no success in cup competitions – an important supplement to the league when extra revenue is at stake. It’s not completely over in this trophy for the Bantams this season, but they need quite the goal-swing turnaround in their final group game at Sunderland, in early November, to escape the group.
Concentrate on the league then, and the FA Cup.
Going to Crawley on Saturday, Adams would have at least liked to have emerged from tonight with some genuine selection headaches – but he won’t have much. Oli Crankshaw was bright and deserves more game time than he’s had so far this season, but it’s hard to make a strong case for him starting. Sutton offers food for thought and Staunton might have earned a place on the bench at least; but Adams will likely have to go with the starting XI that underwhelmed against Barrow.
It wasn’t hard to read between the lines of the manager’s post match comments. “The supporters of Bradford City were calling for us to give these players an opportunity. We’ve given them an opportunity and everyone has seen them tonight. We go to Crawley on Saturday and everyone knows we have will have a massively different team from tonight.”
Perhaps the biggest issue, in the short-term, is whether the 4-2-3-1 Adams prefers – where he enjoyed so much success deploying at Morecambe – can work with the personnel he does have available right now. Or if it’s time for the manager to show his pragmatic side, and switch to a system that makes better use of the limited range of tools currently at his disposal.
Six games without a win now. Just two goals in the last 540 minutes. And 11 conceded at the other end. It’s time to work on those margins.
Categories: Match Reviews
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So we are where we feared we could be. Not enough goals, no plan b, can’t move away from the 4/2/3/1 formation and the fans relationship with the pragmatic and a little icy manager strained.
We always said if results are going our way we can put up with a manager who’s a bit blunt and doesn’t have the warmest manner with the fans. The comments tonight appear to show that adams knows best and wants to let fans know. More tellingly perhaps it’s adams saying “i told you so” to those above him at the club who haven’t recruited more first team type players
Either way it does nothing but bring more negativity
The primary problem with a squad like ours is not that we cannot rotate players swapping quality for quality, it’s that nobody is pushing the first xi and even after a below par performance at the weekend they know they’ll be in the team the following Saturday because they’re better than those who came in mid week. It makes things stale. People may be at 99% but it’s almost impossible to be 100% focused and intense if you’re not being properly pushed and not truly under real competition in every game or training session for your shirt. Human nature. Not anyone’s fault in the team. Just the way it is.
I have seen time and again a focus on a good playing budget for a first xi but It never seems to work. The entire squad is needed as there are always injuries. Always suspensions but just as importantly to keep players truly focused and battling for their starting place. The article talks about margins. Each individual player needs to be finding the very finest of margins to improve themselves and the best way to do that is to be competing internally with another very good player for the same shirt.
It costs more money than we have allocated to the playing budget over recent years. No hiding from that fact I’m afraid. We either have it or we don’t. if we have it we should use it and give the best manager the resources he needs to be successful. If we don’t have it. We will not succeed in our goal of promotion. And I am aware that morcambe had a low budget last season and still were promoted. But they were an exception to the rule
CTID
You can’t blame Adams for that showing last night, in the starting 11 all but two players were at the club last season before Adams was appointed. Poor recruitment in the summer and again in the last window why no loan players, and why is it so many injuries in training week after week .
This could be of interest, Plymouth Head of Fitness and Conditioning has left his role with the club. One to watch
He’s joined Salford City to be closer to home 👍🏻
Thanks for the update 👍
The lack of quality and depth within our squad was there for all to see against a very talented and youthful Man U.
Sadly none of our young talent were able to grasp the opportunity and show the gaffer that they are worthy of a place in the 1st team squad and it’s perhaps best that they develop elsewhere on loan.
The lack of goals is a worry and whilst we might not have realised it at the time, the absence of Lee Angol has been a major blow to not only the goals scored, but our overall attacking threat.
It’s clear that we have a decent starting 11, but a very average squad.
I do not agree that it is all to do with the level of the playing budget; Cheltenham Town FC went up as Champions last season with an average crowd around 3000 and a significantly loewr budget than we had and now have. The difference is the right manager, the right CEO and a set of supporters who are not fickle but buy into the long term vision of the club. Well, we have one out of the three of those at the moment.