By Jason McKeown

They just left him there. All by himself. A lone, solitary figure at the back post, standing in space that no one had thought to cover.

Jamie McDonnell wasn’t wearing camouflage, but the threat he posed somehow went undetected. The only person to spot him, it seemed, was corner taker Arthur Read. The Colchester midfielder sent over a perfect cross, leaving the 20-year old McDonnell with all the time and space he needed to produce a late, late (blimey it was late!) equaliser.

Two points dropped is an understatement. Bradford City were seemingly there. The engine on the team bus warming up ahead of the 214-mile journey home. The time was 4.57pm when Colchester equalised, and what little football there was taking place elsewhere in the UK had pretty much finished. It should have been over here too. City were ready to toast a win and leap back into the play offs. But then McDonnell swooped to completely change the mood.

What a sickener. And yet ultimately it was self-inflicted. From the regular City time wasting that triggered a considerable 10 minutes of stoppage time, to the non-existent marking in the 99th minute. McDonnell was stood centrally when the corner was about to be swung over, before darting undetected into vacant space. It’s no secret City operate a zonal marking system that means no one had a designated job to track McDonnell. But how do you end up in a situation where every single player is back to defend, and yet no one is covering the space at the back post. Just careless. And very, very costly.

And it was a setback, just as it seemed City were getting their act together again. The Bantams performance here was improved on the dismal showing at Fleetwood, without setting any pulses racing. They looked more solid, more balanced and more robust. They didn’t dazzle in the fading Autumn sunlight, but they looked decent value for the three points. Winning ugly, if not exactly creating memories. Carving out the sort of victory that is the cornerstone of teams who are successful.

The fun bit had come from Andy Cook – who else? – when he opened the scoring on the half hour. Not a lot was happening at either end, but Colchester had just started to exert a bit of pressure. City went and won a corner, which Bobby Pointon played short to Jamie Walker. The Scot charged into the box and played a low cross into the danger area, which Lyle Taylor cleared. Pointon seized on the loose ball and pinged another low cross into the middle. It hit a home player, and fell perfectly into the path of Cook.

You can only admire the way Cook reacted so quickly to what was half an opportunity, and the emphatic nature of the finish that gave Colchester keeper Matt Macey no chance. That’s Cook’s 81st goal in a City shirt, leaving him just six short of Dean Windass in the all-time Bantams goals list. Enjoy fourth spot in the list while you can, Deano, because in a few weeks time you’ll be moving down a place.

It also took Cook to 11 goals for this season – a total that he didn’t reach until 22 December last time out. Further evidence, then, that Cook is back to his absolute best this season, after a slight dip in goal return over 2023/24. But make no mistake, it’s an over-performance. He now has nine goals from an xG (expected goals) of 6.4. What this means is he’s netted three more goals than the quality of the chances that he has been provided with this season suggests he should have.

Last season, Cook achieved 17 league goals from an xG of 18.2 – meaning he was basically on par for the amount of goals he’d be expected to have scored, from the chances City created for him. In 2022/23, Cook’s memorable 28-goal haul in League Two came from an xG of just 17.9. We are seeing clear evidence of Cook returning to that type of over-performance this season. And that is very exciting.

But it’s not without its worries. Cook’s goal was City’s only shot on target in Essex. No other Bantams player has more than two league goals this season, with the quest to find a second striker capable of hitting the back of the net still proving fruitless. Olly Sanderson was tried alongside Cook here – his first league start since the Harrogate defeat in September – but he struggled to have any great impact (zero shots).

Graham Alexander seems to have no plan here other than to keep shuffling his cards. Oliver, Kavanagh, Smith, Sanderson. Shuffle. Go again. At some point, someone’s going to grasp the opportunity, aren’t they? Hmmm.

At 1-0 up, City didn’t need to be a great attacking threat. But ultimately their failure to get a second goal cost them dearly. Alexander is trying all sorts of different things to get the Bantams to become a more potent attacking force – including the recent misguided team selection at Fleetwood, where he overloaded the XI with attacking players without enough thought on how they would win the ball – but outside of Cook, it’s just not happening. Even Jamie Walker and Pointon aren’t delivering the goal returns they were last year.

That’s a problem, but the greater balance Alexander deployed at Colchester was at least welcome. They got back to the tried and tested 3-5-2, with Jack Shepherd’s return from suspension meaning Lewis Richards could shift to left wing back. Cheick Diabate’s fall from grace post-Doncaster is looking more long-term. And given the decline in the Exeter loanee’s form even before then, his demotion to the bench is probably merited.

Colchester had an awful lot of the ball, but City were more compact and organised out of possession. Until the silliness right at the end, they looked really comfortable throughout. Sam Walker barely had anything to do on his return to a club he spent five years keeping goal for. Brad Halliday isn’t an obvious right centre back but is doing admirably. Neill Byrne is quietly proving to be a good signing. Richie Smallwood continues to look effective.

It wasn’t that Colchester didn’t carry a threat. Early doors Harry Anderson produced some great skill to beat Shepherd and run at goal, only to shoot just wide. They probably should have had a penalty just on half time when Smallwood challenged Taylor in the box and didn’t seem to get any of the ball. Perhaps the slightly unnatural way Taylor fell to the floor dissuaded referee Carl Brook from pointing to the spot. But if this had been the other way around, we’d have been howling for a pen.

Taylor looked lively throughout, and benefited from a second half Colchester change that saw Samon Tovide brought on to partner him up top. Tovide out-muscled Halliday at one point to run at goal, with Walker standing up to make the block. Perhaps the best chance of the lot was when Anderson got free centrally and ran at Walker. Just as he shaped to shoot and surely score, Jay Benn appeared and produced a brilliant tackle to stop him. Superb work, Jay.

Not that this was a game of heavy Colchester pressure. These chances were sporadic. For long periods, nothing happened. The game was dull. Stop, start. Scrappy. No great momentum for either side.

There’s something about Colchester vs City games. They’re never classics are they? 14 years ago, we did come out the wrong end of a thrilling 4-3 FA Cup tie here. But including this draw, 11 of the last 15 meetings between the two clubs have seen two goals or fewer (including four 0-0s). What i’m saying is, this isn’t a fixture Sky Sports should ever bother rushing to televise, outside of its new streaming service.

For the longest of times, that didn’t really matter to City. They were winning. Looking reasonably in control. Not going all out to secure the outcome, but not looking in serious danger of conceding to a team who were winless since 23 September, and who have only chalked up two league victories all season.

And yes, there was concern when Richards had to go off injured (it looked bad as he needed to have oxygen), leading to a reshuffle at the back. Equally, it wasn’t great to see so much stoppage time go up on the board. But still, they were looking fine. Some pretty good game management. Running down the clock. Getting ready to enjoy a return to the winning feeling.

If only they hadn’t just left him there, unmarked to score.

Conceding so late sours everything. It leaves City outside of the play off spots, with some trickier fixtures coming up. And though the improvements seen here offer up signs of better days ahead, it remains another frustrating period of stuttering form. Which is becoming wearily familiar.

In the 12 months since Graham Alexander took charge at Valley Parade, City’s league form has been full of extremes. He started with back to back defeats. Then four wins in a row. Followed by eight games without a win. Five without defeat. Four straight defeats. Nine games unbeaten. One win in seven. Three successive wins. And now four without a win.

It is streaky form. Some periods of genuine excellence. Other spells that are wretched. Fleetwood aside, this current winless run hasn’t been terrible. But habitually taking so long to recover from a set back is threatening to undermine City’s promotion hopes.

There has been just one occasion under Alexander that City have been on an unbeaten run, lost a game and then immediately bounced back to win their next one (the Carlisle victory that followed losing at Grimsby, earlier this season). When there’s a bad day at the office, the one after tends to be disappointing too. And sometimes, the one after that.

If we were to analyse a key reason why Phil Parkinson succeeded in the Valley Parade hotseat, and why Stuart McCall ultimately didn’t, it was how quickly each got their City charges to recover from set backs. In McCall’s first and third spells as manager, one defeat would very often turn into a long losing run. In contrast, Parkinson had this commendable ability to get the players to bounce back from a bad loss, so it didn’t derail the season. (And yes, that absolutely didn’t always happen.)

Right now, Alexander stands somewhere between the two. Much of the way he speaks and operates reminds you of Parkinson. But if he can’t instil the same levels of resilience in this current City team, he seems destined to fail.

Ultimately City had a confidence knock against Doncaster three weeks ago. They took that into their next league game at Fleetwood, and though they moved in the right direction here at Colchester, it still lingers – and it cost them. It means City have taken just two points from the last 12 available, just as they took two points from 12 in late September.

It’s hard to see how City can succeed if they remain so streaky. We can be confident of many good days to come this season. But the limitations of the squad suggest there will be difficult moments too. More defeats. So they’ve got to unlock the ability to bounce back fast, stop being so over-reliant on Cook over-performing his numbers, and remember to mark the space at the back post.

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Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2024/25, BCAFC, Colchester United, League Two