The heavy feeling of deflation was overwhelming. You could see it on the frowns of the Bradford City players at the end, as they sheepishly went over to clap supporters. You could certainly sense it amongst the chock-full away crowd, as we trooped almost silently home. A big opportunity was passively wasted by surprising timidness. Two points slipped through fingers, without City really looking like they would ever grasp them.

And that’s why it was such a deflating experience. Giddy pre-match excitement was sedated minute by minute during a match that started slow, occasionally flickered into half-life, and then slowed down again. Just look at the truly dire statistics. 90+ minutes of action produced a measly one shot on target from both sides (none from City). Expected goals was a truly woeful 0.36 from Accrington and 0.26 from the Bantams. Only 64% of visiting pass attempts successful found a team-mate, with Accrington’s pass success rate an even worse 54%.

In other words, this was most justifiably goalless of draws you could ever have the misfortune to witness.

That worries in all sorts of ways. City couldn’t grasp the opportunity to go top of the league, with Walsall failing to win again. And by 5pm and with wins confirmed for Port Vale, Doncaster and Notts County, the race for automatic promotion has tightened. City are still in a great position, they really are. But the margin for error is thinning. It’s also now only one victory in their last four games – without a goal in three of those matches. And the eight dropped points during that sequence have come against sides 19th, 20th and 22nd in the table.

You really have to hope these results won’t be looked back on as significantly damaging.

But it’s the nature of the performances in each of these three, on-paper-hugely-winnable-fixtures that really concerns. An opposition blueprint of how to stop the Bantams seems to have been unearthed by then-Gills boss John Coleman. And that blueprint has apparently been passed around the division. The ‘How To Stop Bradford City Plan’ is proving successful in thwarting a side who have spent months demolishing everyone who stood in their way.

It is a plan involves sitting deep. Playing at a slow tempo. Employing the dark arts when needed, to stop City momentum. A packed midfield, with forward players tasked to support wing backs and stop the Bantams successfully doubling up on them. Gillingham and Accrington went 3-4-1-2 against City. Tranmere matched Graham Alexander’s 3-4-3 with a defensive tilt.

Slightly different formations, but the approach and outcome the same – spoiling tactics are spoiling things for City. And certainly neutering their attacking fluidity. Across these three games, City recorded just six shots on target. Over the 90 minutes of the Colchester home game – the only win over this period – they had seven shots on target.

The Colchester game is an important contrast. Pumped up on their own brilliant form, Colchester came to Valley Parade to attack and to win. Their front-footed approach was their undoing, as City showed no mercy in exploiting the space and pressing tirelessly. Come to play and we will play you off the park, whilst performing with great intensity.

There was absolutely no intensity here. Accrington’s approach spoiled the game for sure, especially in the second half. But make no mistake, City contributed to their own misstep. Right from the start they looked off it. Simple passes were untidily executed, habitually failing to reach their intended target. They tried their usual approach of getting the ball up the pitch quickly in order to set up base camp, but the front three had absolutely no impact on a towering Accrington defence. They attempted to probe down the flanks, but the link ups of Tyreik Wright/Tayo Adaramola and Brad Halliday/George Lapslie – which were so devastatingly effective last week – just weren’t functioning to anywhere near the same level.

Which was disappointing. Alexander had named an unchanged team – a rarity these days – and too many players failed to justify their retention of a starting jersey. It was just plain weird in some cases – Adaramola and Halliday have looked so impressive of late, so you didn’t see this dip coming. With others, existing questions about their consistency did not yield encouraging answers.

Lapslie continues to veer from awesome to anonymous week by week. Wright and Kavanagh went backwards when they needed to build on last week’s re-emergence as match winners. Though in Kavanagh’s defence at least, sending endless long balls up to him was hardly going to deliver a high success rate. Kavanagh won 11% of his aerial duals and touched the ball just 22 times before he was put out of his misery and taken off for on 85 minutes (his last action was to turn on half-way line and send a pass out wide that feebly went out of play). The City striker was tasked with leading the line of a team that was doing everything but play to his strengths.

Accrington seized on City’s surprising lethargy and without question shaded the first half. During this opening period, they had eight attempts on goal and exerted their own press. The positive was that City stood up well to the pressure, with Neill Byrne especially impressing. The best moment was when Kesley Mooney appeared to be in on goal and was about to get his shot away. Byrne dived into produce a sliding tackle. He had to get the timing exactly right, and that’s exactly what he did.

The second half initially followed a similar pattern, causing Alexander to do something he doesn’t normally do – make lots of early subs. The hour mark hadn’t been reached and on came Jamie Walker, Bobby Pointon, Alex Pattison and Ciaran Kelly for the disappointing Adaramola and Lapslie. The other two players withdrawn – Romoney Crichlow and Brandon Khela – were also short of their best.

The relatively early changes made a notable difference. Prior to the subs, City had only managed one shot (an effort from Kavanagh so wild it almost cleared the stand behind the goal), two corners and a bitty 54% possession. Every metric went up after the rotations, with the remainder of the game seeing City produce five shots on goal, earn five corners and enjoy a healthier 64% possession.

They turned up the heat, to a point. They didn’t exactly make it boiling hot and leave Accrington sweating. But it was better than the tepidness of before. Each sub played well, with Pointon arguably worthy of the player of the match award, despite playing barely a third of the game. The 21-year-old was full of creativity, bravery and positive intentions. Pattison’s driving runs from deep were a reminder of what has been missing in recent weeks, despite Khela’s general excellence. Walker ran and ran, giving the Accrington defence a much tougher time.

There was pressure. In bursts at least. Better link up player, better purpose. But still, not many real chances. Pattison flashing an effort just wide when bursting late into the box to get on the end of a low cross. That, erm, was kind of it. Unless you count a highly wild, highly frustrating blast over the bar from Aden Baldwin deep in injury time. Baldwin had the ball in space a long way out, with everyone in front of him. We were all screaming at him not to shoot. He did anyway. Safe to say this was no Vincent Kompany moment.

The clock had ticked achingly slowly in the first half, as a snoozefest unfolded. In the second half – as the tension rose and it became more likely that a vital win was going to allude City – that same clock ticked by disconcertingly fast. You waited and prayed for a big moment to come along that would send 2,600 City fans into raptures. But that big moment never came.

And sure, Accrington displayed too much of the dark arts. Sure, the referee Neil Hair was awful and let too much go. The sight of Kelly wrestling a time-wasting Charlie Caton off the pitch when the Stanley forward’s number went up to be withdrawn briefly lightened the mood but said much about the home side’s intentions. Each time City showed signs of mustering up a head of steam, an Accrington player suspiciously went down injured. It’s just so infuriating to watch.   

But we all know this happens. This is League Two. It’s a swamp. It’s muddy, and six years of languishing within it shows just how sticky that mud is. It is these occasions, labouring to win in a tiny stadium where home fans are outnumbered by City, that remind you of just what we’re trying to escape from. And maybe – if this run-in proves to be a successful farewell tour of the division – we needed to experience at least one more afternoon as frustratingly monotonous as this, to appreciate what we’re swapping it with.

Or maybe, these types of banana skins are still the ones we can’t help slipping over, ultimately undermining all the otherwise exceptional work. Because if City end up falling one or two points short of promotion, or of winning the title, afternoons like this will be looked back on with regret. Time will tell.

But as deflating as this experience undoubtedly was, there is no reason to allow despondency to take over. For while the latest League Two table doesn’t make quite the same thrilling reading as it did on Saturday morning, it’s still a very encouraging sight.

So quickly move on we must, and for City that means a tasty trip to Port Vale midweek for what is now 3rd vs 2nd. Port Vale have amazingly not won a home game on a Tuesday evening fixture for over three years (the last a 3-1 win over Mansfield in March 2022, 14 attempts ago). In total, they’ve won just one of their last 25 Tuesday night league games. Fair to say that as a club they do not like Tuesdays. Hopefully that quirk continues. Vale come into it with tails up after derby victory. They will attack, which at least means they won’t be consulting the blueprint.

Another big City following will rock up to Vale Park. Wounds will have been licked and this feeling of deflation put to one side. Because if the Bantams came make it a night to remember in Burslem, there will be even more reason to forget this forgettable afternoon.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2024/25, Accrington Stanley, BCAFC, League Two