By Jason McKeown

That bright, shiny thing that’s suddenly appeared on the horizon is a glimmer of light in Bradford City’s dark and troubled season. Here, the Bantams shook off the recent gloom, tore up the form book and delivered a stunning result that no one saw coming. A biggest league victory since December 2018. One that restores the faintest of life back into their seemingly moribund promotion hopes.

What a scoreline! And what a performance too! The bar is admittedly low, but this was by some distance City’s best 90 minutes at Valley Parade all season. Coming just days off after a surprise win against the much-hyped Wrexham, it’s triggered a badly needed revival in the downcast supporter mood, when all hope seemed lost.

There’s momentum again. Momentum which could build even further at the weekend, with the Bantams due to host bottom club Sutton (glances knowingly at the audience that this is Bradford City, and their big book of infamy, we’re talking about), ahead of the midweek EFL Trophy semi final. In just over a week, we could be talking excitedly about going to Wembley. Heck, we might even be able to speculate about taking two trips to the national stadium this season.

That’s all to be seen of course. For the moment, basking in the joy of an all too rare moment of a Bradford City home victory – their first since November – should not be quickly skipped past. This was a night of substance from the Bantams, with their manager going some way to curbing faint doubts about his ability to bring success to Valley Parade.

Giving his sacking as MK Dons boss earlier this season, largely due to his pragmatic style of football not sitting well with the idealistic owners, Graham Alexander will definitely have enjoyed this. He devised a tactical gameplan that very much understood MK Dons’ expansive, ball-playing strengths, but crucially laid down traps to seize upon the opposition’s weaknesses. Worth noting that under Mike Williamson, MK have won 11 of their last 17 league matches. They are very, very good, yet City have ultimately thrashed them.

In League Two, Bradford City don’t get to be the underdogs very often, especially at home, but events came together here to enable them to operate as the minnows – with the understanding and backing of their crowd. Recent civil wars between supporters and the club put aside to one evening, as everyone generally came together.

Alexander’s 3-4-3 set up enabled City to be well organised out of possession, as right from kick off the Dons imprinted their passing style on the game, pinging it all over the pitch. It was the closest thing Valley Parade has seen to Hughesball since the Welshman was sacked as Bradford City manager last October, but unlike even Mark Hughes’ charges at their best, MK Dons always had a purpose to their passing style. They knocked it around patiently at the back, before suddenly upping the tempo and playing it forward with skill and purpose. At times early doors, all City could do was hold on.

But crucially, they didn’t just sit deep and try to keep their confident opponents out. They pressed high – thanks largely to Alexander’s eye-brow raising decision to bring in Clarke Oduor as right-sided forward, with Calum Kavanagh continuing on the left.

Oduor and Kavanagh are relatively young, raw and far from the more technically able players in the City squad. But they showed a tremendous work rate to press MK Dons and try to force mistakes. Their success in doing so enabled the whole team to operate a higher line that usual. An approach that was greatly helped by Kevin McDonald’s restoration to the starting line up alongside Richie Smallwood. The pair dug in and did the dirty work of pressing to win the ball, whilst making good, economical use of possession on the rarer occasions City had it.

The high line was bait City offered up. An ambush that MK Dons eventually walked into. It was risky from City, with several first half visiting moves seeing the ball played effectively through to charging Dons’ forwards. But when they did get in behind, City’s defence showed great athleticism to recover – with Jon Tomkinson in particular excelling. The American’s pace was absolutely pivotal in making this work. Jack Payne – curiously booed by some City fans – began playing deep but slowly edged more and more forward, as MK Dons’ stylish football suggested they were on the brink of scoring.

That’s where the traps were laid by City.

With the press of Oduor and Kavanagh, the high line to get City players into the box to quickly support rare attacks, the composure in the middle of the park, and the overlapping full back play of Brad Halliday and Alex Gilliead, City proved hugely successful in counter attacking and making the most of the limited occasions they were able to get forward. Unlike so many home games, the emphasis was not on City to break down their opponents. They could wait for their moments and were clinical when they came along.

So sure enough, against the run of play City went ahead. A home attack had broken down. But the Bantams’ high press saw Halliday quickly win it back. He linked up with McDonald who found Oduor, and his cross into the box landed at Tomkinson’s feet, who played it across to Matty Platt. The big centre half – who has never scored a league goal at Valley Parade – took aim and produced a powerful drive that flew into the back of the net. A remarkable goal for any defender.

MK Dons came roaring back and pushed and pushed. But for all their menace, City were doing a great job of keeping them from registering decent attempts on goal. Tomkinson continued to win everything, with Platt and Ciaran Kelly also in commanding form. As the Dons pushed more and more players forward, the City counter attack became an even more important weapon.

And it paid off again, nine minutes before half time. They won the ball on the edge of their own box, with Kavanagh getting it up to Andy Cook on the half way line, who turned and sent over a brilliant wide pass into the path of the onrushing Oduor. The Kenyan international was one-on-one with his full back marker and cut into the box before shooting from an angle. It hit the post, bounced on the goal line and there was Kavanagh to tap home his first City goal and finish a move he had helped to start.

At the point in the build up where Kavanagh first received the ball, just outside the City penalty area, there were eight MK Don players stood in the City half. Kavanagh and Cook’s success in getting the ball up to Oduor so quickly took more than two-thirds of the MK Dons team out of the game. It was highly effective counter attacking football from City, and more than a little naïve from the visitors.

With Sam Walker producing a fine save to keep out a Payne free kick right on half time, City went into the break ahead for the first time since the Crewe game all the way back in August. No wonder we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves during the interval!

Any doubts about the outcome were quickly ended in the early stages of the second half. Oduor again got free on the right and sent over a low cross. It was half cleared, but Halliday wasn’t giving up, pressing, winning it back and eventually sending over a cross to the back post. Gilliead should have scored with a free header but hit the post. No matter, the loose ball went straight back to Cook who was never going to miss. A first Valley Parade goal from open play for Cook all season, capping off a very dominant display from the big number 9. He is never going to press as well as others, but Alexander’s gameplan meant he didn’t need to.

Within 20 seconds of kicking off, MK Dons were 4-0 behind. They passed the ball back to Warren O’Hara, who inexplicably played it straight to Kavanagh. As the January signing ran at goal, Daniel Harvey made a successful tackle, but the loose ball fell straight to Oduor, who scruffily tapped home a goal that his performance deserved. Since arriving last summer we’ve seen flashes of what Oduor can do, but it’s felt all season we’ve been waiting for him to deliver a performance that truly proves his starting worth – here he produced just that.

4-0 to Bradford City. Only 51 minutes on the clock. And at that stage, City had only 29% of possession.

It was crazy, it was surreal, but it was glorious. MK Dons had played so well for large periods – there’s an argument to make they were the best side to visit Valley Parade this season, as ridiculous as that sounds – but their lack of goal threat and vulnerability to the City press was their undoing. They were not helped by the fact injuries had seen Nathan Harness brought in goal for only his second-ever Football League appearance, and they had to play 18-year-old Stoke loanee Emre Tezgal up front.

But even with all these mitigating circumstances, this was some showing from City.

The rest of the game followed a weird pattern of MK Dons still attacking in vain – they had their best chances of the night at 4-0 behind, with Walker making one especially excellent save – and City shutting them out. Given their obvious threat, even a sniff of a comeback might have inspired some home jitters. But City stood firm and have now achieved four clean sheets in a row.

It’s really important not to get carried away by this result and performance. This was not a 4-0 win where City blew the opposition away. It was about outsmarting their opponents, being wily and – unusually for the Bantams this season – being deadly in front of goal.

The opposition suited what Alexander wanted to do, but there’s simply no way that many teams will turn up to Valley Parade and play like this. Sutton on Saturday certainly won’t. And so what worked here – counter attack football, high press and letting the opposition take the impetus – isn’t going to be effective against the bottom side. City will have a lot more of the ball, and will need to use it well to break down their opponents.

Equally, as much as their promotion hopes clearly look much brighter, it still feels like a long shot. City are only four points off now, but have played at least one game more than every side above them up to 5th placed Barrow. They’ll need to go on one heck of a run just to get into the conversation. And with only 11 wins from their 32 games so far this season, it’s hard to make a case that they can lift their trajectory by enough to finish in the top seven. Last season, 75 points was enough to finish inside the play offs. To match that, the Bantams will need to pick up 32 points from their remaining 14 matches. That’s probably 10 wins at least required. Again, worth saying that City have only won 11 games up to now.

Perhaps more sobering of all is that City still have an awful lot of work to do to win over their supporters. Valley Parade once again felt empty here. Not quite as bad as the Salford game maybe, but it was telling that once again no attendance was announced on the night. And while those who stayed away might feel regret missing out on a rare excellent evening for City, the atmosphere inside the stadium – even when winning so handsomely – was still curiously flat. At 4-0 up in the closing stages, you’d have expected more outpouring of joy and singing. In reality, it was quiet and a lot of people left early.

So there’s a lot of work to do. We knew that a week ago. Not much has changed, but the glimmer of light of these back-to-back wins does offer genuine hope that – maybe – rock bottom has come and passed. The fact that home fans ended the evening sarcastically cheering MK Dons’ stubborn commitment to passing it around suggests that as a fanbase we are ready to embrace Alexander’s results over style approach. Especially after this demonstration of how effective it can be.

Now, we just have to successfully answer a question that so many Bradford City teams of the past 20 years have failed at. Can they do it on a cold Saturday afternoon at Valley Parade, against the bottom team in the division?

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2023/24, BCAFC, League Two, MK Dons