By Jason McKeown

What it must be like to do things the easy way. After soaring past almost everyone and looking such a strong bet for automatic promotion, Bradford City are stumbling, falling, maybe even crumbling. Here they faltered again, with the damage especially significant given it handed a direct promotion rival one almighty boost. It means it’s now one win in five, three of which have been defeats, and the margin for error has significantly tightened.

There was no question Port Vale deserved this victory. Deserved to milk the fist pump celebrations at full time. Deserved to revel in the superb atmosphere their fans created in roaring on the Valiants to a hugely important win. City’s own bustling away following did not get to enjoy one bit of this. We got to witness our team continue to reject the easy life. Make things harder for themselves. Increase the jeopardy, and with it the tension.

Cheers for this gift of heightened anxiety lads, you shouldn’t have. No, really.

With victory Port Vale move level on points with City, and will overtake them if they don’t lose their Saturday lunchtime trip to leaders Walsall. Fourth place Doncaster also have an early game and can go level on points with the Bantams, just to ramp up the pressure further before the 3pm Valley Parade kick off against Crewe.

Barely a month ago, City had an eight point cushion within the automatic spots. Everyone bar a faltering Walsall was in their slip stream, and all they had to do was maintain their terrific charge. Now, they’re in growing danger of completely blowing it.

So slow, deep breathes are needed. Now’s not the time to panic, but the fact we have to try to dismiss the idea of panicking underlines the growing fear that, deep down, maybe there is reason to panic. Because this was the most worrying evidence of the lot that something deeper is wrong with City. The recent trajectory is not good and the nosedive deepened with this. There’s never a good time to slump, and now is certainly not a good time for it.

Two aspects especially concern you about this defeat. The first is the mentality of this team. They actually started the game pretty well. 10 minutes of promise, where the ball remained wedged in the opposite half of the pitch to where we City fans were housed. But then Port Vale suddenly broke forward, Ryan Croasdale sent a really clever pass into the path of Lorent Tolaj, and he cut inside and hit a shot from the edge of the box that deflected off Ciaran Kelly and looped into the back of the net. 1-0. City genuinely unlucky.

Which is where the questionable mentality kicked in. Port Vale’s tails were up. They grew in stature by scoring. In contrast City wilted. The performance quickly fell away. They couldn’t live with the home side’s high press. Couldn’t get near the deep-lying Rhys Walters, who was able to set the tempo and set up attacks. Couldn’t cope with the physical threat of Jayden Stockley, and the quick feet of Tolaj. They were out-Bradforded.

Indeed, watching City in the first half have the ball and try to make things happen was to watch a team totally unrecognisable to the side that was sweeping all before them over January and February. The clever link ups between wing backs and wide forwards were gone. The driving runs from midfield were sporadic. Long balls up to Calum Kavanagh is not a new tactic, but the lack of bodies near the young forward made it a fruitless endevour, where too often possession was ceded and another Vale attack began.

One of the strengths of this Bradford City side is they haven’t been giving many goals away, and so rarely find themselves behind. But here, when they did end up in a less familar position of trailing, the reaction was deeply troubling. It was a throw back to the Notts County game just before Christmas. Or the Walsall and Grimsby away defeats in the early months of the campaign. We thought we’d moved on from this. But maybe, rather than having an ability to cope with adversity, we’ve just been very good at preventing adversity happening.

But you’re always going to get these moments where things go against you. And teams who succeed in quests for promotions invariably display grit and resolve to dig themselves out of holes and overcome setbacks. Apart from Salford away and Chesterfield at home, City don’t have a great body of work to show they can cope when the chips are down. They absolutely didn’t cope here.

So Port Vale continued to attack with menace, and by the 32nd minute they had their reward of a second goal. Some lovely build up play involving Walters, Croasdale and Stockley, with the ball worked out wide to Jack Storrack. The left wing back crossed it to right wing back Mitchell Clark, who headed home.

How did Clark get into the box and get their first to meet the cross? Because Tayo Adaramola switched off for a second, and didn’t show enough desire to make up for it and catch his man. It’s been a tough few days for Adaramola and he would eventually be hooked off early here – the second game in a row that’s happened. All this after such a wonderful display against Colchester and all round brilliant run of form. The 21-year-old must have learned a lot about the harsh realities of senior football these last few days. And really, he needs a rest to reset.

But Adaramola was not the only culprit. In the first half especially, no one emerged with any credit. Alexander’s decision to go with the same front three as Saturday seemed questionable before kick off, but looked downright misguided by half time. George Lapslie continues to give unpredictable performances that invite no trust whatsoever. He was totally anonymous and should have been taken off long before he was. Tyreik Wright had another tough night and missed a very good chance to equalise at 1-0.

The back three team selection has drawn criticism from supporters. That’s fair enough, but I do think you can see what Alexander was trying to do. He actually went with the same trio – Aden Baldwin, Paul Huntington and Kelly – as the home game against Port Vale on Boxing Day, where defensively City had played really well. So you could see why he’d want to do it again. Why Huntington was a good option against the physicality of Stockley. Why Kelly came back in (especially as Romoney Crichlow, for all his qualities, isn’t quite hitting the heights we know he can).

But of course it didn’t work and of course Alexander has to take the blame for that. Huntington was taken off at half time. Shame, as I really like the guy and the job he has done for us since signing. But his lack of pace was a problem on the night. Baldwin had his worst game for some time and Kelly was certainly rusty after his lay off.

So not great, but completing the set of under-performing players was midfield. Alex Pattison we can forgive in his first start since the end of February. Richie Smallwood? Hmmm. He’s having a very good season no question, but there’s been a drop off of late and his display here was certainly troubling.

Smallwood was overrun and made so many bad decisions. And his attempts to try and take more control of the situation only limited, rather than aided, City. He’s a decent leader no question, but a great leader encourages and drives others to do their jobs better, and there was a bit too much finger pointing, a bit too much grabbing of the ball to take every set piece. No one could argue with Smallwood’s effort levels or desire. It’s just that he’s slightly moving away from what has made him so brilliant this season. Perhaps his near ever-present status is catching up with him.

Ultimately the first half was so bad from City that they were lucky it was only 2-0 at the break. But that’s when the second aspect of concern kicked in – the crowd reaction.

Because there were boos at half time from City’s travelling support. Look, we’ve all done the good supporter/bad supporter debate to death. I’m not judging you if you booed. I get it. But it’s the fact that we’d witnessed a performance so poor that it could justify booing that concerns. Because even with the recent tail off in form, before this game the crowd has stayed right behind the team and the manager. The positive atmosphere has been wonderful and uplifting, with a real feeling of unity. As the boos rang out here, it was clear that unity is breaking.

So the team can’t be upset by the boos, but we can all worry about the divide that is suddenly creeping in. This sort of path does not end well. You have to hope it’s a one-off.

At least the second half gave us some encouragement. Huntington and Adaramola were taken off with Bobby Pointon and Jack Shepherd introduced, and the players began to look calmer and assured. Still not great – let’s not get carried away – but familiar patterns of decent attacking play began to emerge. Pointon was typically excellent and you just hope he is fit enough to start on Saturday. Kavanagh was also much improved, faring better from City’s attempts to keep it more on the deck. They forced some pressure, had 63% second half possession and mustered eight attempts on goal to Port Vale’s one.

And if that improvement had have led to City pulling a goal back, blimey would the complexation of the game have changed. That possibility very much grew when Kavanagh fell in the box, after a challenge from Clark, for a questionable penalty (the third of three penalty appeals City had in the second half). Richie Smallwood stepped up to take it, and his low effort was saved by Ben Amos. It was the 89th minute, but it was clear a hefty chuck of stoppage time was going to be added after Kelly went down for a long spell. So had Smallwood scored, who knows what chaos would have unfolded.

It sucks that Smallwood missed, but maybe at this stage of the season if someone is going to miss a penalty, it’s best it’s the skipper. Because if any player has the mentality to not let it damage him, it’s the guy who has spent his first two years in a City shirt largely unloved by the crowd but getting on with his job untroubled anyway.

The penalty miss was cue for many City fans to head home. It’s the first time the Bantams have conceded more than one league goal in a game since New Year’s Day, which says a lot about their high standards. But filing out of an away end feeling disappointed is not an unfamiliar feeling this season. It’s still only five wins on the road – and now five defeats against the other six sides in the top seven, with a trip to Doncaster still to come.

Just not good enough. And the danger with the tightening of the margins is that City have to change their away day struggles very quickly.

After the Cheltenham home win that had put the Bantams eight points clear, it appeared they needed to win five of their remaining 11 games to seal a top three finish. And given they had just won 14 of their previous 18 league matches, that all seemed very achievable – especially with very winnable-looking March fixtures.

But then they lost their next two, meaning it was five wins needed from nine. They beat Colchester. So it moved to four wins required from eight. They drew with Accrington. Four wins from seven. Now they’ve lost again. So four wins from six games. Nothing changes, but the amount of leeway they have is much less. (And maybe, with everyone else in the division habitually messing up, it won’t need to be four wins, but that should definitely remain the target to be sure.)

What it all means is added pressure on the final three home games, starting with Saturday’s visit of Crewe, who’ve just had an important win over Grimsby to keep their play off hopes alive. They’ve also still got Notts County and Fleetwood to come at Valley Parade.

Win them all, hopefully. But that still means one more win to find, or pick up three draws on the road and hope that’s enough. Realistically, City need to win one of their away games at Swindon (seventh in the form table for last eight games), Chesterfield (top of the form table) or Doncaster. And right now, that doesn’t feel like a prospect you would put your mortgage on. Since Andy Cook got injured against Barrow on New Years Day, City have scored just four times in eight away games. That is a real problem.

It all gives Alexander a lot of food for thought. He has been criticised for his team selection at Vale Park. He probably did get it wrong in messing about with the backline whilst not swapping up the front three. But when you play a squad rotation game, you’re always going to get criticism in defeat for who you went with. As he argued after, the selection strategy he deployed was the same approach that was delivering huge rewards a few weeks ago.

The criticism won’t bother the level-headed boss, but what is definitely bothering us fans is that the streaky form Alexander has shown since taking the helm seems to be continuing again. We’ve got used to lots of long winning runs under Alexander that have been followed by long winless runs. So maybe, after such a brilliant start to the calendar year, this was always coming at some point. But it simply cannot continue for much longer. We have to be more resilient and recover faster from set backs. The jury remains out on whether Alexander can mastermind this.

So Alexander has to find answers and find them quickly. The return to home comforts, and another ramped up Valley Parade occasion on Saturday, will certainly help. After these last two games on the road, you do feel City really have to beat Crewe in order to regain their foothold of a top three placing and calm those fraying nerves.

Fail to do so, and they really are going to have to do it the hard way.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2024/25, BCAFC, League Two, Port Vale